SCROPHULARIACEAE (FIG WORT FAMILY) 



377 



ing lips three or four inches across ; calyx tubular, five-lobed, 

 smooth, and glandular-hairy. "Apple" globular, about an inch 

 and a half in diameter, both hairy and prickly. This plant is quite 

 as poisonous as the two preceding species and should be as promptly 

 suppressed when out of the bounds of cultivation. 



MULLEIN 

 Verbdscum Thdpsus, L. 



Other English names: Velvet Dock, Feltwort, Blanket-leaf, Hedge 



Taper, Candle-wick, Jacob's Staff. 

 Introduced. Biennial. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom : June to September. 

 Seed-time: August to November. 

 Range: Nova Scotia to Minnesota, southward to Florida and 



Kansas. 

 Habitat: Old fields, pastures, and waste places. 



Gray states that the generic name of this 

 plant is corrupted from Barbascum, "the 

 bearded" certainly most fitting for a plant 

 so densely hairy in all its parts. (Fig. 262.) 



Stem two to seven feet tall, stout, erect, 

 simple or with one or two upright branches 

 near the top. Root-leaves tufted, spreading 

 on the ground in a large, thick rosette; ob- 

 long, light green, thick, densely woolly with 

 branched and interlacing hairs, tapering to 

 the base, four inches to a foot or more in 

 length, the larger ones with petioles. No 

 grazing animal will touch these felt-like 

 leaves, and hibernating insects find them a 

 safe winter shelter. Upper leaves narrower 

 and more pointed, alternate, their bases often 

 decurrent on the stem to the axils of the 

 leaf below, making the stem four-winged. 

 Flowers sessile on long, dense, cylindrical 

 spikes ; calyx with five pointed lobes, very 

 woolly; corolla yellow, with five unequal, 

 rounded lobes, spread flat, open for but a Thapsus). x J. 



