Stems 5-12+ dm; lvs oblong to lance-ovate or ovate- oblanceolate, toothed, tomentose on both sides but only thinly so above, sessile, not decurrent or only very shortly so; infl simple or sometimes branched, at first dense and spike-like, at full maturity usually elongating and exposing the axis between the fl-clusters; cor 2.5-3.5 cm wide; stigma spatulate, decurrent on the style; otherwise much like no. 5 [Verbascum thapsus L.]; 2n=32, 34. Native of Europe, found here and there in our range as a weed.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

About 1925 Mr. Walter Neff and Mrs. Ivy Neff discovered this species as a common weed in the Cedarville Cemetery and nearby pastures and roadside in Carroll County, about two or two and a half miles southwest of Burnettsville. Mrs. Neff has written of the discovery and described the plant (Amer. Bot. 36: 85-87. 1930). At that time the name was still in controversy. I visited this colony in 1929 and found that it formed an almost complete stand in a pasture of two to three acres and that it was scattered in pasture fields for a distance of about three miles. I sent specimens collected from this colony to Pennell who sent them to Murbeck for determination. Murbeck, in 1936, identified them as Verbascum phlomoides L. In 1937 I found this mullein common along an east and west road two miles north of Rochester, Fulton County and in several places along the Tippecanoe River south of Talma.

……

Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = null, non-native

Wetland Indicator Status: FACU