We bought our land the weekend before Thanksgiving, and the next summer I walked around with big eyes watching to see what would come up. In a handful of places I saw a single tall, plant. On the edge of a meadow. By the side of our main trail where there was a little erosion. In the shadow of the new barn.
It seemed majestic towering above the other plants, so solitary with its torch of tiny yellow blossoms. I hoped it was a native prairie plant.
Now I know it is Mullein Verbascum thapsus. It’s not a native. Europeans brought it with them in the early 18th century for it’s medicinal properties to treat various ailments such as lung diseases, diarrhea, colic, migraines, earaches, coughs and cold.
It has long been a useful plant.
- Romans dipped the dried stalks in fat and used it for torches.
- Roman women made a yellow hair dye from the flowers.
- It’s fuzzy leaves were placed in shoes for insulation.
- Quaker women, who weren’t supposed to use makeup rubbed it on like rouge because an allergic reaction to its hairs put roses in their cheeks.
- It also has been used to slow down fish and make them easier to catch.
Mullein took well to the New World. It was reported in Michigan by 1839 and was found in California just 40 years later.
A single plant can produce 240,000 seeds, and those seeds can live in the soil for many decades.
Still it doesn’t seem like a dangerous invasive. 93 percent of those seeds fall within 15 feet of the parent stalk. It prefers bare and disturbed soil that is dry, sandy or gravelly, and just about every other plant out competes it. I certainly haven’t seen it taking over on our land the way wild parsnip and Queen Anne’s Lace and other plants do.
I like it. It’s tall stalk is covered with delicate flowers, but each one opens only for a single day, opening before dawn and closing in the afternoon.
I’m not going to let it grow near my garden. Many insects love it, and some of them are not welcome in the garden. It has been know to harbor the cucumber mosaic virus, Erysiphum cichoraceum (the cucurbit powdery mildew) and Texas root rot
Nobody’s perfect. You can tell how intensely humans have interacted with mullein because of all it’s names: Adam’s Flannel, Beggar’s Blanket, Candlewick Plant, Common Mullein, Flannel Mullein, Flannel Plant, Hag’s Taper, Jupiter’s Staff, Molene, Mullein, Velvet Dock, Velvet Plant, Woolly Mullin
Both in Europe and Asia Mullein was once credited with the power to drive away evil spirits . Passing it sure brightens my day.
I think Mullein is my favorite weed.
What’s yours ?