Garden escape or Common Bistort?

[Pete Collins]

This was right next to housing on the edge of Luton/Dunstable so I assumed it was a garden escape, but now I'm wondering if it might be Common Bistort?

[Meta menardi]

It certainly looks like Bistort to me and the leaves look right. It loves wet ground, so if that is part of what you have seen, that would help confirm it.

[aeshna5]

Looks like Bistort to me too, but possibly still escaped from cultivation like the silver foliaged Yellow Archangel beside it!

[Pete Collins]

Thank you both - I think I'll put it down as an escaped Bistort cultivar, then. I've never seen Common Bistort, but I thought I recognised it from photos here on WAB.

It wasn't on wet ground, Meta menardi, it was on a dry chalky slope at the foot of some chalk downs.

I didn't spot the silver foliaged Yellow Archangel at the time, aeshna5, but there was plenty of the real stuff further along the same bridleway!

Thanks again.