Verbascum densiflorum.
By katarina
14 comments
Winter time is a good time to learn theoretically something about plants. As I went through the photos I had made this year, it came into my mind.
I will make serial (good or bad, we will see) about healing properties of some plants which we call weeds or which grow as wild flowers.
I am sure you all know something about them or you have some special experience or story – so why not to share it?
My first flower is……
Yes. It is Verbascum or, as Germans say, the royal candle :))
I do not know its English name, yet I hve heard it has something to do with “torch”. It is said, that if this plant, which normally grows on sunny slopes like this one did, has enough sun and good soil, it can reach the height of adult man. Its flowers, which smell like honey and are sweet, are perfect for expectoration and laryngitis. Dried plants were used as fuel and candle!!!!
As Verbascum belongs to Scrophulariacae, a family of very invasive species, I looked in internet, if there are any proves how it survives. And I found this: “In a famous study constituting the longest known ongoing scientific experiment, Dr. William James Beal, then a professor of botany at Michigan Agriculture College, selected seeds of 21 different plant species (including Verbascum blattaria) and placed seeds of each in twenty separate bottles filled with sand. The bottles, left uncorked, were buried in a sandy knoll in 1879.In the year 2000, one of these bottles was dug up, and 23 seeds of V. blattaria were planted in favorable conditions, yielding a 50% germination rate.This represents the longest known length of time in which seeds of any plant were able to germinate after such a long period of dormancy (120 years).”
:))
14 Dec, 2012
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Comments
Pretty colours and interesting text, Kat.
Is this Verbascum in your garden ?
14 Dec, 2012
Hi, TT. No, the photo I made when I was picking herbs in meadows in August. Do you know the English name of this plant, please?
Thank you, Scotkat :)
14 Dec, 2012
I have a common type of verbascum in my garden, also known as Mullein. It grew to 10 feet this year, and was still going strong when the growing tip broke off, whereupon it sent out about five flowering spikes lower down. I love it. It is a more acid yellow than yours. It has very large "furry" silver leaves .
14 Dec, 2012
Lovely pic Kat, i know it as Verbascum but it is also called Mullein or Common Mullein i think :-)
14 Dec, 2012
Thank you very much for the info, Surreylad.
14 Dec, 2012
Melchi, Slad@do you know any English folk name for this plant, which has "torch" in it?
15 Dec, 2012
I have Common Mullein on my allotment. Every year I hoe the seedlings up, and every year it seeds some more.
Katarina - what do we do with these plants to treat the infections, make a tea with them ?
15 Dec, 2012
Diane@ You have to pick flowers and dry them on a hot place, yet shielded from direct sun. Well dried flowers keep nicely their colour. They contain saponins, which both soothen the inflammed mucosa and "dissolves" phlegm. Then you can use it solo as infusion (tea) or - what is better and we do it here - make a mixture from several herbs which have similar effect. E.g. lichen, thymus, anise and camomile.
15 Dec, 2012
I just looked it up Kat, it states the roman ladies used it to dye their hair, Quakers used it to rub on their cheeks, hence Quakers rouge, also beggars blanket, apparently leaves in shoes kept ones feet warm, lady`s flannel, witches taper, candle wick, lots of names and uses, fascinating subject..........
15 Dec, 2012
http://witchofforestgrove.com/2010/10/30/weeds-for-witches-part-v-mullein/
This might explain what you are looking for, Katarina.
15 Dec, 2012
Lincslass@that´s interesting, you brought frst info on something like "torch" in English - candle wick (?)...I wonder why did Quakers rub the flowers on their cheeks, never heard about it. Talk/chalk was expensive? Or was it ritual?
15 Dec, 2012
Melchisedec@thank you very much! That was really interesting. So now I understand, that this plant was connected with Hecate rite and that´s why it was called Hecate´s torch. Very well. Thank you!
15 Dec, 2012
:-)
15 Dec, 2012
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This is so beautiful Katarina
14 Dec, 2012