One of my favorite medicinal plants
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Range:
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Identifying characteristics:
A biennial which produces a rosette of large, fuzzy, gray-green leaves the first year, and an attractive spike of light yellow flowers the second year. The leaves are large, oval shaped, and extremely hairy, even flannel like. The second year flower stalk is erect, and quite large, growing up to 8ft in height. The end of the stalk has a spike fully of tiny yellow flowers. This common plant is often missed, but I have no idea how, as it is so large, it grows practically everywhere, and is really quite beautiful.
Habitat:
Roadsides, and waste areas throughout the United States.
Parts Used:
leaves, stalk, flowers, and roots. Whole plant
Uses:
Wild Food Uses:
None Known
Medicinal Uses:
A tea or tincture made from the plant is used to treat a host of lung ailments. Native Americans smoked the leaves to alleviate coughing, bronchitis, and asthma. I have personally used mullein tincture to treat colds, and asthma. I use mullein in a tonic to treat colds. Taken at the first signs of a cold, this formula has proven highly effective at "nipping a cold in the bud". It has also proven to lessen the length and severity of colds. I use a mixture of mullein and goldenrod tinctures to treat seasonal allergies. During the winter months I used to suffer from nose bleeds brought on by the dry air inside my house. I began taking mullein tincture to remedy this, and did not have one nose bleed over the last two winters. A friend of mine had a severe sinus infection that would not respond to antibiotics. He took a tincture of Verbascum thapsus I gave him, and in two days his sinuses were clear.
Medicinal Actions:
Anticatarrhial, Antitussive, Demulcent, Lymphatic
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