156 MULLEIN. 



Description. — The root is biennial, fusiform, whitish, hard, 

 and somewhat ligneous, sending off here and there little root- 

 lets. The stem is erect, simple, firm, straight, cylindrical, 

 leafy, angular, winged, covered with a thick greyish pubescence, 

 and varies in height from three to five feet. The radical leaves 

 are very large, spreading, and sustained on short petioles ; the 

 cauline ones decurrent, sessile, and gradually decreasing in 

 size ; the whole are alternate, ovate or oblong, attenuate at the 

 base, crenulate at the margin, wrinkled above, very thick, and 

 covered on both sides with dense, whitish, branched, intricate, 

 woolly hairs. The flowers form a terminal, long, cylindrical, 

 dense, spike-like raceme. The calyx has five, deep, ovate, 

 acute divisions, with lanceolate bracteae at the base. The corolla 

 is large, rotate, or somewhat funnel-shaped, golden yellow, rarely 

 white, consisting of a short thick tube and a five-parted limb, 

 the segments obovate, obtuse, somewhat unequal. The five 

 stamens are inserted into the tube, shorter than the limb, the 

 three upper filaments shorter, nearly erect, hairy, the two lower 

 longer, glabrous ; the anthers oblong, two-lobed, orange- 

 coloured. The germen is roundish, tomentose, obtuse, sur- 

 mounted by a filiform style and a clavate stigma. The fruit is 

 an ovoid capsule, surrounded by the calyx, with two cells and 

 two valves opening at the summit and containing numerous 

 small angular seeds. Plate 34, fig. 1, (a) calyx and pistil; (6) 

 corolla opened ; (c) pistil ; (d) capsule ; (c) transverse section 

 of the capsule ; (/) seed magnified. 



This handsome species of Mullein is frequent on banks, 

 waste ground, and by hedges, particularly in a light sandy, 

 gravelly, or calcareous soil *, and occurs in similar situations 

 throughout Europe. It flowers in July and August. 



This plant is most probably the (pXo[xog of Dioscorides, so 

 called from <p*of , <p?^yos, ajlame, because the stems have been used 

 for torches, hence also one of the English synonymes, High 

 Taper. Verbascum is an alteration of barbascum, from barba, 

 a beard, on account of the woolly hairs with which the plant 



* It is interesting to the naturalist to observe the companionship of 

 plants. The Mullein is often found associated in the same localities with 

 the Foxglove ; and there is not only a similarity between the leaves of 

 the two plants, but the irregular corolla and unequal stamens of Verbascum 

 show the affinity of the solaneco (pentandria, monogynia) with the scrophu- 

 larinecB (didynamia, angiospermia). 



