Mullein Plants

Mullein Life Cycle

• Mullein has a biennial life cycle: it grows a rosette of leaves close to the ground in the first year; the leaves are a gray-green color, soft and woolly. In the second year the plant grows a tall spike, up to 6 feet high, covered with flower buds at the top. The five-petaled yellow flowers come out a few at a time, setting seed as they fade. Mullein attracts pollinators, bees to the flowers and birds to the seeds. Because the leaf rosettes survive the winter, they provide shelter for various insects in cold weather, such as beetles and ladybugs.

As Medicine

• Mullein was known to the Romans and described by Pliny; "mullein" comes from Latin "mollis," meaning soft. It was used for medicine long before it came to North America. A tea made of mullein leaves is good for coughs and other respiratory conditions (it needs to be strained to remove leaf hairs). Mullein has been shown to inhibit tuberculosis and herpes, and is generally anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory. Mullein flowers are a famous remedy for earache -- the flowers are picked when open and steeped in oil, a drop or two of this oil is dripped in the ear.

Sacred Plant

• Mullein became a sacred medicine plant to a number of native American tribes. Mullein leaves are used in non-tobacco smoking mixes; the smoke has medicinal qualities as well as ritual uses. Other traditional uses include using the dried stems as tinder. Before the introduction of cotton it was used as wicks for candles, giving it another of its folk names: "candlewick plant".

Growing Mullein

• Mullein is easy to grow in most gardens. It is a pioneer plant -- it will grow in poor soil and in the wild can be found in disturbed land and at the edge of fields. The seeds need light to germinate and the plant prefers an open sunny position. Mullein makes thousands of seeds and you'll have to pull up a few rosettes next year if you allow all the seeds to mature, but surprisingly many of them will be eaten by birds, like finches.