Mullein
Verbascum thapsus
One of the most ornamental plants in the herb garden. Folk names - bear ear, royal candle, fire-grass, grass-torch, golden-blossom. In the wild it grows on stony soils, slopes, in steppes, dry meadows, on sunny forest edges.
Description: a biennial plant that forms only a rosette of dense, hard leaves in the first year. Then a large, thick, also densely pubescent stem 1-3 m in height develops. Bright yellow flowers sit on the peduncle with bunches( 2-5 each) and form a dense spicate inflorescence. Bloom flowers not simultaneously, but gradually, several
flowers per day, and very quickly fall off. Blooms from June-July to August-September.
Ingredients: flowers contain mucus, saponins, flavonoids, iridoids and a little essential oil.
Cultivation: sunny areas, nutrient-rich soil. After planting in the spring in a row, late plantings are thinned and plants are planted at a distance of approximately 50 cm, and self-seeding is possible. It is possible to grow mullein in flower gardens.
Collection: when collecting, drying and storing flowers you need to be extremely careful, as they easily lose golden color, and with it, most of their healing properties. The best time for collection is late morning, just after the sun has dried the morning dew. At this time, it is easiest to separate the coronas of newly blossoming flowers with attached stamens. Drying should be carried out in a ventilated room at a temperature not exceeding 50 ° C.Store in tightly closed containers so that they do not collect moisture from the air.
Medicinal properties: the main properties of the mullein are astringent and emollient. Tea from its flowers dissolves mucus and softens irritation with bronchitis, coughing and wheezing, it also has a blood-purifying and diuretic effect. Flowers are also used for flavoring liqueurs and making tea a pleasant color.
Application: the decoction is used for cleaning the skin, added to the water for sedentary baths appointed for hemorrhoids and itching in the anus, folk medicine recommends that the mullein also from diarrhea and bedwetting. Extracts from flowers Mullein in combination with olive oil have a good effect with ear pain, furuncles in the ear, eczema in the external auditory canal and with chronic inflammation of the middle ear.