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

Barbarea vulgaris: Golden Spring Flowers of Yellow Rocket Brighten Roadsides

Summary: Barbarea vulgaris is an Old World native known commonly as wintercress or yellow rocket. The edible spring roadside wildflower does in cabbage family pests.

yellow rocket (Barbarea vulgaris Ait. f.): John D. Byrd, Mississippi State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images

Barbarea vulgaris is an Old World wildflower native to Eurasia. Its homelands encompass most of Europe as well as parts of North Africa and of temperate Asia.

The wildflower's adaptability has encouraged its massive introduction outside of its native range, with firm naturalization, oftentimes negatively perceived as a weed, in North America.

Barbarea vulgaris is naturalized in France's North American overseas territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
The Old World wildflower claims naturalized homelands in all ten Canadian provinces.

Barbarea vulgaris is naturalized in all of the continental United States, excluding Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Texas.

Barbarea vulgaris is known commonly in English as bittercress, garden yellow rocket, herb Barbara, rocketcress, winter rocket, wintercress or yellow rocket.

Yellow rocket thrives in a variety of habitats.

The congenial herb is undaunted by such challenging soils as calcareous, clay, sandy and siliceous.

Yellow rocket fares admirably in disturbed environments, such as ditches, pastures and roadsides.

Multiple stems emerge from the plant's taproot system, attaining a height range of 12 inches (30 centimeters) to 3 feet 3 inches (1 meter).

Lower leaves radiate from the stem base and feature small leaf lobes along the stalk and a large lobe at the tip. Contrastingly, cauline (Latin: caulis, "stalk"), or upper stem, leaves grow directly from the stem as small, sessile (Latin: sessilis, "resting on the surface, sitting"), or stalkless, foliage.

Flowers open in April atop stems in dense racemes (Latin: racemus, "cluster of grapes") as short-stalked floral clusters. Yellow rocket's golden flowers exhibit the cross-shaped arrangement of four petals characteristic of members of the mustard family, Brassicaceae, also known as crucifers (Latin: crucifer: "cross-bearing") or as the cabbage family.

Yellow rocket does not suffer from the plight of other crucifers. Although Barbarea vulgaris contains sulfur-containing compounds known as glucosinolates that attract pesky crucifer specialists such as the diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella), also known as the cabbage moth, the spring bloomer zaps crucifer nemeses with undetected saponins, naturally soapy chemical compounds that bring about the demise of larvae.

With its phenomenal allure as a preferential ovipositional, or egg-laying, site, yellow rocket offers great promise in an agricultural polyculture (one or more different crops in the same field) of companion planting for dead-end crop trapping. Dead-end crop trapping lures pests away from the cash crops, such as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, so that egg laying takes place on a hostile floral site, such as yellow rocket, that prevents the development of pest offspring.

All parts of yellow rocket are edible, from its root, which pickles or roasts tastefully, to its salad-garnishing flowers.

Barbarea vulgaris derives its common name of bittercress from the bitter pungency of old leaves.

Mildly pungent young leaves are appreciated in salads in Europe.

Valued for natural health benefits as a nutraceutical, yellow rocket is packed with such nutrients as calcium, fiber, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin B and vitamin C.

April is glowing with yellow rocket's golden flowers on prominent display in pastures and roadsides near my yard.

The golden profusion continues into May and June.

yellow rocket (Barbarea vulgaris), illustrated by English botanical draughtsman and glass painter Isaac Russell (flourished 1830s-1840s); W. Baxter's British Phaenogamous Botany, vol. VI (1843), Plate 450: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

yellow rocket (Barbarea vulgaris Ait. f.): John D. Byrd, Mississippi State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1391085

yellow rocket (Barbarea vulgaris), illustrated by English botanical draughtsman and glass painter Isaac Russell (flourished 1830s-1840s); W. Baxter's British Phaenogamous Botany, vol. VI (1843), Plate 450: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48840814;
Biodiversity Heritage Library (BioDivLibrary), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/28757248350/

For further information:

Baxter, W. (William). British Phaenogamous Botany; or, Figures and Descriptions of the Genera of British Flowering Plants, vol. VI: Plate 360. Oxford, England: Published by the Author, 1843.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48840814

Moerman, Daniel E. Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary. Portland OR: Timber Press, 2009.