MULLEIN (Verbdscum virgatum, Withering). Flowers yel- 

 low, corolla flat, wheel-shaped with hardly any tube, stamens 

 5, all perfect, bearded with violet woolly hairs; borne in a 

 slender terminal raceme, the short footstalks usually in 2's 

 and 3's. Leaves oblong, somewhat toothed, without foot- 

 stalks, alternate. A slender, erect, somewhat sticky-hairy 

 plant, 4 to 6 feet high, blooming in summer in valley-lands 

 and along roads in California. 



This so closely resembles the common Moth-mullein which 

 is a weed in Eastern fields, that it might be mistaken for a 

 tall form of the latter. Like this, also, it is an emigrant from 

 Europe, but in its distribution in the United States, seems con- 

 fined to the Pacific Coast. It has doubtless reached us by way 

 of Mexico, in the days of the Spanish or Mexican occupation. 

 If it were not for the association of the genus in the American 

 mind with weeds, the graceful beauty of these plants would 

 be more appreciated. The two common naturalized species 

 of the Atlantic slope have also found their way of late years to 

 California, and are now more or less abundant in the Sacra- 

 mento Valley. 



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