GAMOPETALiE 141 



the garden, where the Common Mullein is a frequent 

 and favourite flower. And it is perhaps owing to this 

 last fact that the different species are found in a wild 

 state (or rather semi-naturalised state), in w^aste places 

 adjacent to towns and villages. 



This species is apparently native in some parts of 

 the Midlands and the South of England, and in the 

 North of England and South of Scotland it is per- 

 haps only naturalised. It is not found in Ireland. 



The Black Mullein is found on banks and waysides, 

 especially on a gravelly soil, or in fields and waste 

 places, being like other species often an escape from 

 gardens in the areas indicated above. The most 

 native habit is grass-land on a chalk soil, where it 

 grows with some other species. 



The habit is tall and pyramidal. The stem has a 

 few long, distant, woolly hairs, and is angular. The 

 radical leaves are stalked and not decurrent, egg- 

 shaped to oblong, or lance-shaped, or cordate, doubly 

 scalloped. The stem-leaves are stalked, except the 

 upper ones, ovate to heart-shaped. They are not 

 white below, but stellately downy, nearly hairless 

 above. 



The flowers are borne in a tall, erect, slender raceme 

 — simple, or but little branched — or clustered in a 

 sub-simple, spike-like panicle. They are bright yellow. 

 The ultimate flower-stalks are twice as long as the 

 calyx. There are many flowers within each bract. 

 The sepals are small, tomentose, and lance-shaped. 

 The anthers are not decurrent, the stamens being 



