Common Mullein, An Unappreciated Weed and Wildflower

If there was ever a weed that should be classified as an ornamental, I would vote for common mullein. 

📸: @Carmen Hauser via Canva/Featuring tall Common mullein growing on a gravel road.

A Unique Look

Most would recognize common mullein as that weird-looking weed with a 5- to 10-foot-tall stalk and seed head growing in undisturbed road ditches around mid-summer. As a wildflower or ornamental, it can provide some showy foliage and flowers. The seed stalk grows exceptionally tall during the growing season, turning brown and standing tall for the winter, providing a contrast with a snow-covered ground.

A Biennial Plant with Two Different Looks and Many Names

Year One:

Biennials have a very unassuming first year’s vegetative growth, only to take another form in year two and produce seeds. Common mulleins’ first-year growth is simply a low-growing whorl of silvery, large, and soft leaves with a tap root. It is a pretty rosette, having very large, furry leaves with large veins on the underside. The rosette keeps putting on leaves growing from the center of the plant and may be one to two feet in diameter by fall.

📸: BASF Contributing Writer/Featuring an example of a Biennial's (Common mulleins) first year vegetative growth.

Year Two:

In year two, new leaves develop in the spring through the winter killed leaves. In a very short period of time, it bolts a very tall flower spike with showy yellow flowers and a long seed head. Instead of flowering all at once, only a few flowers open at any one time on the flower spike in a spiral fashion. The taller the spike, the longer the flowering period, with larger plants flowering for up to three months.

📸: BASF Contributing Writer/Featuring a close up shot of a Common mulleins second year vegetative growth. Note the very tall flower spike with showy yellow flowers and a long seed head in the image. The taller the spike, the longer the flowering period, with larger plants flowering for up to three months.

Flowers will open before sunrise and then close in the early afternoon. It continues to bloom in a spiral as fertilized seed capsules turn brown and dry. A long seed spike up to 5 feet in length can produce between 100,000 and 200,000 seeds that will drop over the winter, completing its life cycle. Seeds mature in their capsules as the dead plant stands for up to another year and gradually drops its seeds near the base of the plant. Seed production is the only means of reproduction, but the seed can remain dormant in the soil for many years.

📸: BASF Contributing Writer/Featuring old seed spikes on common Mullein Rosettes. Flowers will open before sunrise and then close in the early afternoon. It continues to bloom in a spiral as fertilized seed capsules turn brown and dry. A long seed spike up to 5 feet in length can produce between 100,000 and 200,000 seeds that will drop over the winter, completing its life cycle. 

Other Names for Common mullein

Common mullein is also called "woolly mullein" or "flannel plant" because of its hairy or felt-like leaves, as well as great mullein because of its towering seed spike. I also found a reference to “cowboy toilet paper.”

Fun Facts about Common mullein

Another unique fact about common mullein is that this weed is generally considered to be cross-pollinated. Because each flower is open for less than a full day, fail-safe flowers will self-pollinate at the end of the day if they are not cross-pollinated.

Medicinal Uses for Common mullein

is used for a variety of home remedies or herbal medicines, including treatment of infections and coughs. It was supposedly brought to the US in the 1700s as a fish poison.

Distribution of Common mullein seed

It is very easy to control, so it is not a threat to field crops, as it does not do well in any area where soil is disturbed, but can be a problem in pastures. Livestock generally do not disturb common mullein growing in pastures, as the hairy leaves are not palatable.

📸: @Michel Viard via Canva/Featuring Common mullein (Left), and 📸: BASF Contributing Writer/Featuring Common mullein seedcap (Left).

It is considered an invasive weed as it was introduced into the US by European settlers. It can now be found across the US in roadside ditches, pastures, and other open areas that love bare soil but do not do well in shaded areas.

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