the use of this technique in Greece, Italy, Spain, France, the 
Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Ireland and England. 
Their knowledge — and mullein seeds — stood these moun- 
taineers in good stead as settlers in a strange land. The women 
set aside a place in their dooryard gardens for mullein plants — 
the more especially because, aside from the use of its seeds for 
fishing, mullein was considered a valuable household remedy. 
Common mullein (Verbascum Thapsis) is a coarse plant which 
grows from two to six feet high, with a stout, erect stem and a 
basal rosette of large, velvety leaves. It has tightly-packed yel- 
low or (rarely) white flowers. This is most probably the species 
brought by these settlers, which, escaped from their Blue Ridge 
gardens, augmented the weedy flora of the region. 
As far as informants remembered, fishermen crushed mullein 
seeds, mixed them with a little water, and dumped the mixture 
into a stream. The stunned fish came to the surface, gasping and 
struggling, and were collected in nets or baskets. Fewer than a 
dozen people usually participated in these “‘fish stings’’, but 
cooking and eating the catch was a social event for the whole 
community. 
Although Verbascum Thapsis is an introduced plant, not na- 
tive to the New World, the mullein of the Blue Ridge settlers was 
not the first mullein to grow in North America. A century earlier, 
before these people brought seed from Europe, mullein grew in 
New England. John Josselyn, in his New Englands Rarities, lists 
the ‘‘mullin [sic] with the white Flower’ as among “‘Such Plants 
as have sprung up since the English Planted and Kept Cattle in 
New-England”’ (12). 
What species of mullein Josselyn mentions as having been 
brought to New England before 1621 is uncertain. He mentions a 
white flower. Verbascum Thapsis, does, rarely, have white 
flowers. Tuckerman, who added notes to Josselyn’s account, 
states that a white floured [sic] mullein listed in Gerard is 
perhaps V. Lychnitis, adventive in some parts of the United 
States. This species is sometimes called “‘white mullein’’, but it 
is scarce and its flowers may be either yellow or white. Another 
possibility is V. Blattaria, the moth-mullein, the flower of which 
may be white, yellow, or purple-tinged. Since Tuckerman ob- 
serves that V. Thapsis was ‘‘common in Cutler’s time”? — that 
is, certainly by 1785, when Cutler published a list of plants found 
in the Massachusetts area — it is very probable that this species 
is the ‘‘mullin with the white Flower’’ to which Josselyn refers. 
86 
