SCROPHULAEINE^. 391 



Plant with more or less white cottony down or wool, especially on the 

 calyx and under side of the leaves. Flowers rather small, several 

 to each bract. 

 Lower leaves cordate at the base. Eaceme nearly simple. Hairs of 



the filaments yellow 4. Bark M. 



Lower leaves narrowed at the base. Eaceme panieled. Hairs of the 

 filaments white. 

 Down short and powdery. Upper side of the leaves nearly 



glabrous 5. White M, 



Down a mealy wool, easily rubbed off, on both sides of the leaves 6. Muary M. 



1. Great Mullein. Verbasctun Thapsus, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 549, incorrect as to the hairs of the stamens?) 



A stout, erect biennial, simple or branched, 2 to 4 feet bigh, clothed with 

 soft woolly hairs. Leaves oblong, pointed, shghtly toothed, narrowed at 

 the base into two wmgs running a long way down the stem ; the lower ones 

 often stalked, and 6 or 8 inches long or more. Flowers in a dense, woolly 

 terminal spike, sometimes a foot or more long. Corolla yellow, usually 6 to 

 9 Hues diameter, shghtly concave ; 3 of the filaments are covered with yel- 

 lowish woolly hairs, and have short 1-oelled anthers; the 2 longer stamens 

 glabrous or nearly so, with longer anthers adnate to the filaments. Capsule 

 thick, rather longer than the calyx. 



Common on roadsides and waste places, all over Europe and temperate 

 Asia to the Caucasus, Altai, and Himalaya, and now naturalized in America. 

 Frequent in Britain, extending as far noHh as Aberdeen. FL simmer. A 

 variety with a much larger and flatter coroUa and longer anthers to the 

 long stamens, not uncommon on the Continent, where botanists give it the 

 name of V. thapsiforme, but which is believed by some to be the original 

 form described by Linnaeus, is said to have been found also in Kent. 



2. Moth Mullein. Verbascum Blattaria, Linn. 



(Eng. Bot. t, 393.) 



A tall biennial, not quite so stout as the great M., sometimes branched, 

 and either glabrous or with a few glandular hairs in the upper part. Leaves 

 oblong, coarsely toothed or sinuate ; the lower ones stalked, the middle ones 

 sessile, the upper ones clasphig the stem or shortly decurrent. Flowers 

 yellow or rarely white, in a long, loose, simple raceme ; the pedicels from 3 to 

 6 lines long, either sohtary or rarely two together in the axil of a green 

 bract. Hairs of the filaments purple. 



On banks and edges of fields, in central and southern Europe, Russian 

 and central Asia, and naturalized in North America, but not extending into 

 Scandinavia. Indicated in several counties of England, but generally re- 

 garded as an introduced plant, except perhaps near the southern coast. Ft. 

 summer atid autumn. 



3. Twdgg^ Mullein. Verbascum virgatum, With. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 550, not good.) 



This may be a mere variety of the 7)ioth M., but the glandular hairs are 

 more abundant, and the pedicels of the flowers are very short, usually from 

 2 to 6 together under each bract. 



Apparently limited on the Continent to western and central Europe, and 

 generally less common there than the moth 31., although it has estabhshed 

 itself here and there as a weed of cultivation in northern as well as tropical 

 America and other distant lands. Rather more frequent in England than 

 the moth M., and has been found in L-eland. Ft. summer and autumn. 



