Today’s post is about a rather new wildflower for me, one that I first discovered a year ago, but wasn’t able to photograph it or identify it until this year. It is a Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria). It grows up to about 5 feet tall, and has a lot of flowers on a single, multi-branched plant. Here is what a single plant looks like:
Getting in closer, here are a couple of closeup shots:
An interesting plant! Researching this wildflower, I find that it can either have white or lemon-yellow flowers. Each flower has 5 lobes and 5 red stamens, and the stamens are surrounded at their base with spiderweblike hairs in violet color. Regarding the name, I found two possibilities for how this beauty gets it’s common name. First, with a little bit of imagination, one may see a moth … thus, moth mullein. Another account is that this plant attracts moths. Either way, an interesting find! Oh, and the Latin species name “blattaria” comes from the Latin word “blatta”, which means “cockroach”, as the plant was supposed to discourage the pest.