When I go hiking plants that stand out from the rest in some way tend to pique my curiosity. Such is the case with mullein.
Mullein
This plant first caught my attention in the spring. It is difficult to miss. The one in the photo is young and only 10-12 inches across.
The leaves are long and covered in fine hair. It grows in a rosette form close to the ground and I have seen them in the neighborhood of three feet across. Absolutely gorgeous plants in the spring that persist through autumn.
Verbascum thapsus is a dicotyledonous plant that produces a rosette of leaves in its first year of growth. The leaves are large, up to 50 cm long. The second year plants normally produce a single unbranched stem usually 1–2 m tall. In the East of its range in China, it is, however, only reported to grow up to 1.5 m tall. The tall pole-like stems end in a dense spike of flowers that can occupy up to half the stem length. All parts of the plants are covered with star-shaped trichomes. This cover is particularly thick on the leaves, giving them a silvery appearance.
I added a new book to my research library, American Indian Healing Arts, and was able to identify mullein by name for the first time.
The book refers to the plant only as far as burning it for rituals/fragrance. However, mullein has medicinal properties that can be traced back 2000 years.
Great Mullein has been used since ancient times as a remedy for skin, throat and breathing ailments. It has long had a medicinal reputation, especially as an astringent and emollient, as it contains mucilage, several saponins, coumarin and glycosides. Dioscorides recommended it for diseases of the lung and it is now widely available in health and herbal stores. Non-medical uses have included dyeing and making torches.
Like many ancient medicinal plants (Pliny the Elder describes it in his Naturalis Historia), Great Mullein was linked to witches, although the relationship remained generally ambiguous, and the plant was also widely held to ward off curses and evil spirits. The seeds contain several compounds (saponins, glycosides, coumarin, rotenone) that cause breathing problems in fish, and have been widely used as piscicide for fishing.
The flowers provide dyes of bright yellow or green, and have been used for hair dye. The dried leaves and hair were made into candle wicks, or put into shoes to help with insulating them. The dried stems were also dipped into suet or wax to make torches. Due to its weedy capacities, the plant, unlike other species of the genus (such as V. phoeniceum), is not often cultivated.
Photos best viewed in high definition!!
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When one tugs at a single thing in nature; he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
