A friend of mine gardens in a community plot and noticed a very large, yellow-flowered plant sprouting on his allotment.\u00a0 He asked if I could identify it from a description, which turned out to be an easy task.\u00a0 At this time of the year, a plant that is three to six feet tall, with yellow flowers on a single, statuesque spike, can only be common mullein.<\/p>\n
Common mullein or Verbascum thapsus arrived in North America in the eighteenth century and spread so efficiently that many people think it is a native wildflower.\u00a0\u00a0 In reality, it originated in southern Europe, North Africa and Asia and has been known and used medicinally and cosmetically since ancient times.\u00a0 Along the way it has acquired scores of picturesque nicknames, including flannel or velvet plant, flannel mullein, wooly mullein, hag\u2019s taper, beggar\u2019s blanket, cowboy toilet paper and feltwort.\u00a0 I am sure similar nicknames proliferated in the languages of every country where common mullein made itself at home.<\/p>\n
The \u201cflannel\u201d or \u201cfelt\u201d names refer to the leaves, which are covered with a network of fine, soft hairs.\u00a0 Common mullein is biennial, meaning that it sprouts a large rosette of basal leaves in its first year of growth.\u00a0 The following year each plant sends up a single tall flower stalk, bears blooms, sets copious amounts of seed and then dies. The individual flowers, which cover at least one third of the stalk, are yellow, with five petals apiece and red or red-orange stamens.\u00a0 If all the flowers bloomed simultaneously, common mullein would be a wondrous sight and probably a popular garden plant, like its relatives, snapdragons and penstemon.\u00a0 Unfortunately the flowers open a few at a time and the plant remains a low-key player on the floral scene. If you notice common mullein at all, the image that comes to mind is of a tall, slender, greenish candle. Given this resemblance, it is not surprising that beginning with the ancient Romans, people have collected and bundled dried mullein flower stalks, dipped them in wax and used them as tapers or torches.\u00a0 Of course in the Middle Ages, this practice\u2014like so many others–was associated with witchcraft and common mullein acquired yet another nickname\u2014devil\u2019s blanket.<\/p>\n
Back in 2012, English horticultural writer Richard Mabey published a book called Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants.\u00a0 <\/em>It is a wonderful volume, full of weed-related learning and lore.\u00a0 One of the weeds that Mabey profiles is rosebay willowherb\u2014Chamerion angustifolium\u2014also sometimes known as \u201cbombweed\u201d for its propensity to be among the first plants to colonize bombed out sites.\u00a0 Common mullein is another such plant.\u00a0 Provide the seeds with open, disturbed soil in a sunny location and they will germinate like crazy.\u00a0 This is why so many of the tall, yellow-tipped \u201ccandles\u201d show up in summer on the edges of farm fields, by roadsides and in railroad right-of-ways.\u00a0 One of my friends, who is an ace at making floral arrangements from found plant material, puts common mullein in an imaginary plant category that he calls \u201croadsidia\u201d.<\/p>\n Despite mullein’s vigorous tendency and foreign origins, it is not considered invasive because it goes its merry way without stomping native plant life.\u00a0 Mullein is also useful, which has probably helped keep it around.\u00a0 The flowers and other plant parts produce yellow or yellow-green dyes, which have been used to color both cloth and human hair.\u00a0 Those felted leaves, when steeped into a tea or other decoction, are traditional remedies for coughs and respiratory problems.\u00a0 If you are thinking of doing this, consult a good herbal reference volumn or internet site first and be sure to strain the finished liquid, as the leave’s hairs can be irritating.\u00a0 The foliage also has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties and in the past was made into poultices and applied to wounds.<\/p>\n If you have an herb garden, common mullein might be a perfect addition.\u00a0 In mid-summer, find the nearest waste space and collect the seed.\u00a0 Strew it on open ground and let nature take its course.\u00a0 During the winter months, the seed will get the chilling it needs in order to germinate the following spring.\u00a0 Once mullein has made a home in your garden, it will effectively perennialize, and eventually you will have first year rosettes and second year flower stalks every single year.\u00a0 All you have to do is grub out or give away unwanted seedlings.<\/p>\n If common mullein sounds just a little too uncivilized for your garden, consider its relative, nettle-leafed mullein or Verbascum chaixii.\u00a0 These plants have similar felted leaf rosettes, but sprout multiple flower stalks with more abundant blossoms.\u00a0 ‘Album’ bears white flowers, while ‘Sixteen Candles’ features yellow blooms.\u00a0 Hybrid verbascums, like the popular ‘Southern Charm’, are even more refined, featuring flowers in a color range from white through medium pink.\u00a0 All are wonderful for flower arranging and unlikely to prompt accusations of witchcraft.\u00a0 If you are interested in trying them, check the listings at Bluestone Perennials, 7211 Middle Ridge Road, Madison, OH 44957, (800) 852-5243; www.bluestoneperennials.com.\u00a0 Free catalog.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A friend of mine gardens in a community plot and noticed a very large, yellow-flowered plant sprouting on his allotment.\u00a0 He asked if I could identify it from a description, which turned out to be an easy task.\u00a0 At this time of the year, a plant that is three to six feet tall, with yellow … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[1445,1442,1443,222,1444,1446,1441],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-biennials","tag-common-mullein","tag-figwort-family","tag-herbs","tag-summer-wildflowers","tag-tall-flowering-platns","tag-verbascum-thapsus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1920,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions\/1920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h1>\n
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