Americanized Common Mullein Gardens: Ground Cover and Herbal Medicine

Summary: Black, common, moth and orange mulleins give Americanized common mullein gardens ground cover and herbal medicine away from farms, orchards and pastures.

Puu Mali Restoration Area, Mauna Kea's northern slope, north central Hawaii; Friday, July 23, 2004, 19:13:38; image #040723-0031: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Americanized common mullein gardens add Greek plants and ground cover that antagonize farmers, indigenists and ranchers but appeal to herbalists and landscapes of Greek-styled buildings in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Common mullein brings farms and pastures 100-year soil viability, prolific seed production, Prunus B & G, tobacco mosaic and tobacco streak viruses and unpalatable woolly foliage. Considerations of the biennial native to Greece as a disease-carrying, land-invading pest cancel the herb's contributions to fish and ground reflection loss controls and to medicine. Provincial legislation in Alberta, Canada, and state legislation in Colorado and in Hawaii designate common mullein unwelcome weeds despite Atlantic to Pacific coast naturalization since 1876.

Colorado likewise excludes eastern European and Russian moth mullein, common mullein relative and fellow member in the Scrophulariaceae family of figwort and snapdragon herbs and sub-shrubs.

Seedlings feature egg-shaped, 0.04- to 0.24-inch- (1- to 6-millimeter-) long, 0.04- to 0.14-inch- (1- to 3.5-millimeter-) wide embryonic leaves called cotyledons with semi-hairy, soft green surfaces.

Common mullein gets a deep taproot and short-branched, woolly-haired, 19.69- to 98.43-inch- (50- to 250-centimeter-) tall stems by growing wherever North America gives 140-day growing seasons. Elliptical to oblong foliage hits higher ranges in foliar sizes as basal leaves and lower ranges as upper leaves and holds alternate places on their stems. Basal, 5.91- to 17.72-inch- (15- to 45-centimeter-) long, 0.79- to 3.94-inch- (2- to 10-centimeter-) wide leaves include branched, dense, woolly hairs on lower and upper surfaces.

Similarly branched, dense, woolly hairs jostle the undersides and the upper-sides of 3.94- to 15.75-inch- (10- to 40-centimeter-) long upper leaves in Americanized common mullein gardens.

Dense, 7.87- to 19.69-inch- (20- to 50-centimeter-) long, unbranched inflorescences called spikes, 1.18 inches (3 centimeters) across, keep stalkless yellow flowers directly attached to main stems.

One pistil, two long and three short stamens, five united petals and five united sepals load perfect common mullein flowers, each 0.98 inches (2.5 centimeters) across. White or yellow hairs on common mullein's stamens make differentiation possible from the otherwise similar black mullein, also called black torch, whose stamens manage purple hairs. Flowering nourishes fruiting of 180 to 250 oval, 0.12- to 0.39-inch- (3- to 10-millimeter-) long capsules, each with 600 seeds and with woolly-haired surfaces, per stem.

Americanized common mullein gardens offer 180,000 oblong, ridged, wrinkled, 0.03- to 0.04- (0.7- to 0.9-millimeter-) long, 0.016- to 0.019-inch- (0.4- to 0.5-millimeter-) wide seeds per plant.

Common mullein, called Verbascum thapsus (bearded plant [of] Thapsus [Tunisia]) and described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), produces 100-plus-year viable seeds.

Sunlight and temperatures above 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in bare, disturbed or gravelly soils quicken germination of common mullein's dark gray to brown seeds. Seeds and seedlings reveal slower rates of germination and growth in vegetated areas even though common mullein life cycles resuscitate abandoned lots and revive overgrazed pastures. Their ambiguity shows in the common names Aaron's rod, big taper, blanket-leaf, candle-wick, devil's-tobacco, flannel plant, flannel-leaf, hedge-taper, ice-leaf, Jacob's staff, torches, velvet dock and velvet-leaf.

Americanized common mullein gardens with black, moth and orange mullein turn down ground reflection loss, turn out herbal medicines and turn up June to September blooms.

common mullein; Calaveras County, Northern California; Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011; 10:11:01; Franco Folini, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

common mullein's flowers; Puu Mali Restoration Area, Mauna Kea's northern slope, north central Hawaii; Friday, July 23, 2004, 19:13:38; image #040723-0031: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/24688393546/;
Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 4.0 International, via Starr Environmental @ http://www.starrenvironmental.com/images/image/?q=24688393546

common mullein; Calaveras County, Northern California; Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011, 10:11:01; Franco Folini, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/livenature/6048097075/

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "1. Verbascum thapsus." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 177. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358196

"Verbascum thapsus L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/29200424