The leaves are like little green flags marking the location of the creeping rhizome just underground. Dig down through the mulch and hook the white rhizome with your finger. Pull gently. The challenge is to see how much you can pull up without breaking it. The rhizomes have a bit of elasticity.
Each rhizome tip must grow inches in a day. Every little while it sends a leaf up and a cluster of roots out into the soil. Botanically speaking, the rhizome itself is not a root but an underground stem. How does it know just how far under the surface to run? Is this a factor of light, moisture, gravity? Maybe all those and more.
I don't think these pictures show how much fun this is. If you're careful, you can get a lot of weeding done for just a little effort. I like the smell of the decaying mulch as I work, a woodsy smell. I'm usually sorry when there is no more to weed. No matter; in a couple of weeks they'll be more.
This patch is growing in a St. Augustine lawn. It is also sending up blossom heads, one at the site of each leaf. Dollar weed probably gets its name from the leaves, which being shiny and round might be compared to a silver dollar. But lawn service companies say it is called that because it makes them rich. Dollar weed in a lawn is simply the result of over-watering. Less water, and it won't grow. But homeowners still frequently pay to have it killed with herbicides.
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