Wild Girl holding a mullein leaf & smoking it with lemon balm
You can find mullein in sunny, disturbed waste places like roadsides. Native American tribes historically smoked the dried leaves of the fuzzy plant, known by its Latin name Verbascum thapsus, for an array of healing uses. The Navajo used it to cure fevers; the Hopi as a cure for insanity; the Iroquois for hiccups. Modern herbalists regard it as soothing for the lungs. I like to add it to smoking mixtures because it adds a fluffy, soft, airy texture; tonight I paired it with some lemon balm, a.k.a. Melissa officinalis.
The leaves of Melissa are calming when brewed in a tea, as well as when ignited and inhaled.
Mullein in the urban wilds
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I use my Coffee maker to make my tea it filters out the little irritants in the Mullen, Mullen tea is relaxing and aids in a good nights sleep.
I make my Mullen tea in a coffee maker, it filters those irritating little items right out and the tea is relaxing at night for sleep.
Seed and flower oil of mullein is poisen to insects you say. What about an insect repellant, does it do that or what plant really does? I have used claimed formulas of mixed different essential oils but they do very little good. What did the native americans, and early fronteersmen and women use for mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers and fleas? They had no Deet. Thank you, morris mozarmorez@msn.com
Yarrow and tansy are said to be insect repellants, though I don’t have personal experience using either.
Yarrow works well. We have some growing in our yard and on summer nights I pick a flowering head to rub on my arms and legs before sitting on out on the deck.
[...] Click here to learn more about historical Native American uses for mullein. Second-year mullein [...]
The mullien plant is one of the first plants i learned to use medicinally..the tribal elder i grew up around got my interest up about this plant (mullien).He asked if i knew of this plant that grew in his backyard mullien an when he showed it to me i said no i new nothing about the plant. I was kind of embarassed cause i though of myself as knowlegable about plants . He schooled me on mullien ,, thats been many years ago maybe 15 or so. I learned to eat wild plants way before i learned the medicinal properties of others. Guess its my up bringing ,, we hunted and we gathered wild plants , fruits, an game..such as fish, deer, rabbits and birds…and we still do.
[...] plants, check out this piece on the dark Datura. Or for something a bit tamer, here’s one on smoking lemon balm, a kind of mint, to relax. And if you’re into survival, don’t miss my posts about [...]
[...] Mullein: A fuzzy-textured plant that grows in bright sunny places in disturbed soil and is soothing to sore [...]
So rad.
Great website!
Have you ever tried damiana, also quite good to smoke.
Sean,
I haven’t tried Damiana as it doesn’t grow around here. I looked in my plant books and none of them listed it, so I checked Wikipedia and learned that it’s native to Central America instead. Apparently some people say it mimics marijuana in its effects. Do you concur?
There’s a guy who runs a survival school out in Alberta who taught me that a thoroughly dried mullein flower stalk makes a great hand drill for fire-by-friction. Never tried it though. Mullein isn’t that prevalent around here.
Parge,
I haven’t seen anybody use mullein as a hand drill, but I have seen folks dip the flower stalk in fat or oil and light it to make a torch! Very cool to see!
Yuppers, mullein stalk is one of my fave hand drill stalks. It works super well and it’s relatively easy to find nice long straight ones.
Mullein is one of my favorite herbs. Each summer I’m blessed with a few volunteers in my garden (the plant doesn’t like to be transplanted due to its deep root so it stays wherever it grows, even it it’s in the middle of a bed of carrots). It’s the flowers I like to harvest, leaving some for the bees of course. I dry them a bit, then infuse them in olive oil for a few weeks and either use the oil as is or make it into a salve. The flower oil is soothing and antibacterial. Mullein and garlic oil is great for kid’s ear infections. Mullein oil/salve soothes skin irritations, rashes, scrapes, etc. Mullein, with its second year flower stalk is a beautiful plant.
Susan,
How does the mullein olive oil taste? Or do you just use for medicinal purposes?