30 April 2008
Mullein
Posted by bryanc under: biology; nature .
The rules to Mullein War are simple. Two combatants harvest a deceased mullein stem then continuously hit them together in a sword fighting like fashion until something snaps in two. The first person to have his or her stem break is the loser. The winner keeps his or her stem and uses it for the next battle. I have a brother that found a stem that lasted for three days and 21 bouts. It was amazing. I still feel inferior to him today, even fifteen years later.
Mullein, or Verbascum thapsus, is a non-native biennnial that grows in disturbed soils. In the first year the plants produce a basal rosette – a collection of low growing, very hairy, leaves. Because the leaves grow low the plants cannot handle much competition so are considered non-invasive because they have not caused much trouble in established plant communities. The leaf hairs create a signification boundary layer which reduces the loss of heat and water vapor by essentially slowing the rate that circulating air carries heat and gas away from the leaves. It is the same process that the hairs on our arms exploit and is why they stand up (giving us goose bumps) when you and I are cold (increases the boundary layer). In the second year the plants produce a single, tall (0.4-2 m), straight stem that has a large inflorescence with many flowers. At the end of the season the seeds disburse and the plant dies. The stem dries out and the coveted weapon of Mullein Wars is produced.
There is a huge, year old, rosette on the property that is sure to produce a fierce fighting weapon this spring (unless it waits for the third year to produce the stem, as some have been shown to do when they are stressed). If my brothers take a break from college I’ll have to slap them in the face with a leaf and challenge them to a duel.
2 Comments so far...
Rosettes Says:
4 September 2008 at 6:50 pm.
A Mullein War is something that I want to witness! How tall do they get?
bryanc Says:
5 September 2008 at 4:51 am.
Hah, the wars can definitely get a bit epic. There’s plenty of fiber that gets in your eyes and teeth. The plants can get pretty tall, I’ve seen some that were easily over 2 meters.
