SCKOPHULARINE.E. 



605 



Plant glabrous or slightly glandular-hairy. Two stamens 

 longer than the others, with long anthers. Flowers large, 

 one or few to each bract. (Raceme usually simple.) 



Pedicels mostly longer than the calyx 2. Moth M. 



Pedicels shorter than the calyx 3. Twiggy M. 



Plant with more or less white cottony down or wool, espe- 

 cially on the calyx and under side of the leaves. Flowers 

 rather small, several to each bract. 

 Lower leaves cordate at the base. Raceme nearly simple. 



Hairs of the filaments yellow 4. Dark M. 



Lower leaves narrowed at the base. Racemes panicled. 

 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. Hoary M. 



1. Great Mullein. Verbaseum Thapsus, Linn. (Fig. 719.) 

 (Eng. Hot. t. 549.) 



A stout, erect biennial, simple or 

 branched, 2 to 4 feet high, clothed with 

 soft woolly hairs. Leaves oblong, pointed, 

 slightly toothed, narrowed at the base 

 into two wings 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, some- 

 times a foot or more long. Corolla yel- 

 low, usually 6 to9 lines diameter, slightly 

 concave ; 3 of the filaments are covered 

 with yellowish woolly hairs, and have 

 short 1- celled 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 Hima- 

 laya, and now naturalized in America, 

 ing as far north as Aberdeen. Fl. summer. A variety with a much 

 larger and flatter corolla 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 de- 

 scribed by Linnseus, is said to have been found also in Kent. 



Frequent in Britain, extend- 



