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| Mullein; Verbascum Thapsus L. |
Plantain Family; PLANTAGINACEÆ
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formerly Figwort Family; SCROPHULARIACEÆ
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| No common weed is hairier than Mullein, which is perfectly nicknamed Velvet or Flannel Plant. Soft, thick leaves covered
with wooly fuzz keep it from drying out in the sunniest of sites, and deter animals from eating it. One would as soon try eating an old sock. |
| Almost every herb book has Mullein, as do all weed books. It is both common and eyecatching. Not only do its frosty hairs
give it a pale appearance differing greatly from the routine green of most weeds, but the thing sometimes grows gigantic, with 10 feet
of flowerstem not out of the question. Since it is so striking, common, and useful medicinally, it
must be learned. I wish it was edible, too, but perhaps that is an ingrate sentiment for a weed so well-liked that it signifies "good nature" in the Language of Flowers. |
| This cousin of foxglove, butter and eggs, snapdragons, and other pretty plants, is, like them, from the Old World. Of a
biennial lifecycle, in its first year it hugs the ground, making a huge clump of gray-green leaves as large as feet. Meanwhile it plunges it
roots deep. The second summer sees it send skyward its amazingly stout, clumsy flowerstem, full of clasping leaves. Densely
congested lemon-yellow flowers, an inch or so wide, appear a
few at a time on the knobby stem, making a not very showy display beginning
in late June and continuing into October. The ensuing seedcapsules liberate thousands of sand-like seeds. Occasionally
white-flowered mulleins are encountered. Sunny, dry, gravelly sites are the place to find these herbs. Railroad track vicinities, for example.
By September the plants sometimes become ugly with powdery mildew. |
| Moth or Slippery Mullein (Verbascum
Blattaria) is far less common and nowhere near as hairy. In fact, it looks little like
its robust, velvety associate. The Turkey Mullein
(Eremocarpus setigerus) is a groundcover weed of California, rare in our area.
Mullein Pink (Lychnis Coronaria) is also known as Rose Campion and Dusty Miller, but is a garden plant that only sometimes escapes
and runs wild. Other names for the Common or Great Mullein are: Shepherd's Club, Candlewick, Adam's Flannel, Beggar's Blanket,
Hag Taper, Blanketleaf, Velvet Plant or Velvet Dock, and it is one of several plants called Aaron's Rod. Numerous additional names
exist, but are not heard any more. For example, Cow's Lungwort! I call it Fuzzweed. "Mullein" is from an old French name. The
scientific names are old Latin. |
| Some other species of Verbascum are grown by lovers of outlandish garden flowers. Their silvery leaf color, bold size and
bright blossoms are an impressive combination. Gil Schieber grew a hybrid mullein that reached close to 15 feet tall, amazing everyone
who saw its weighty majesty. A Purple-flowered species, too, is cultivated. But by far the most familiar, common, and useful mullein is
the weedy one: Verbascum Thapsus. |
As a weed it is of minor bother, being easily pulled up, at least in the sandy soil that it favors. Its seeds are actually sold in
herbal seed outlets, because the plant is so good as a dye source and medicinal herb. Numerous medical claims have been made for
it. Besides being used for earache, reported efficacy is recorded in combating asthma, malaria, eczema, and pulmonary constipation.
On a less dramatic level, its thick, soft felty leaves have been used as a wild blotter, and as leaf "gloves." Their texture is sort of
deceptive, being so alluringly soft, yet caused by
spiky sharp hairs as revealed through magnification. So it is
not a good wild toilet paper.
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Originally published as the Seattle Tilth newsletter Weed of the Month in January 1992, along with an illustration from a book.
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