General: Biennial herb from a taproot; stems single, erect, 0.5-1.5 m tall, angled, stalked-glandular upward especially in the inflorescence, smooth below.
Leaves: Basal leaves in a rosette, broadly lanceolate to oblong, 5-25 cm long, tapering to a short-stalked base, coarsely toothed and sometimes also wavy-lobed; stem leaves numerous, alternate, progressively reduced upward, becoming unstalked, with clasping leaf-bases, the margins with sharp triangular teeth.
Flowers: Inflorescence a rather open, bracted, spike-like, terminal cluster, occasionally with additional axillary clusters, of numerous stalked flowers, the stalks 8-15 mm long; corollas yellow or less commonly whitish, wheel-shaped, 2-3 cm across, 5-lobed, the lobes nearly equal, the tube very short; calyces glandular-hairy, much shorter than the flower stalks, deeply 5-lobed, the lobes narrowly elliptic; stamens 5, the filaments covered with purple-knobbed hairs.
1. Plants more or less densely stalked-glandular upward, essentially smooth below; leaves green.......................Verbascum blattaria
1. Plants woolly throughout with branched, non-glandular hairs; leaves greyish.
2. Inflorescences loose, often branching at the base; leaves unstalked, not decurrent on the stem or only slightly so; plants loosely woolly...........................Verbascum phlomoides
2. Inflorescences dense, simple; leaves stalked, at least below, decurrent on the stem, usually as far as the next leaf below; plants densely woolly............................Verbascum thapsus
Habitat / Range
Mesic to moist roadsides, fields and waste places; rare in SW and SC BC; introduced from Eurasia.
