My Mullein

My Common Mullein has bloomed!   Not the most impressive plant I've had (I had one that topped out at 7 feet), but it'll do.

I was about to give up on getting blooms this year and that would be a shame.

I love 'em.

Bees love 'em.

Bluebirds love 'em.

T-Bird hates 'em.

He's outnumbered so tough noogies.

We discovered one growing in a field, we both liked it, and we scooped it up and brought it home.

Mullein is drought resistant, so that's good in South Georgia.   

If it seeds, you'll have a hundred of 'em pop up, and that's bad in T.'s yard.    If it sprouts up outside of a designated flower bed, it's history.

This plant is originally from Europe and Asia, but landed in Virginia in the mid 1700's.   As some sort of fish poison.

Supposedly, the leaves are good for treating minor ailments (unless you're a fish).   

That's what a young man told me as he gathered the bottom leaves.    I asked him what he was gonna do with the leaves and he told me he   intended to smoke 'em for his asthma.

Not really sure that smoking ANYTHING is good for asthma.    I read that some people try smoking it for a buzz with disappointing results.

Okay Sport, whatever you say!

I feel no animosity against fish so I don't need poison.

I don't fool around with strange plants for medication or recreation.   One bad trip on shrooms was all it took to convince me that mushrooms are for PIZZA. 
   
I have heard of people who wandered into the woods with nothin' but a Zippo and a pack of rollin' papers.    They would twist up any sort of dead, dry plant material, spark it up, and come out of the woods days later with no memory of what they smoked, or what happened afterwards.

I'm gonna have to take a pass here.   

"So you scraped that icky brown moss off of a dead stump, rolled it, and you intend to smoke it?     With no idea of what it'll do to you?"

This is where I hand over my lighter and step back.     I'll just watch with my cell phone ready in case you stop breathin' or start talkin' to people I can't see.

The bluebirds and I win out with the mullein.  

 I'll have a plant in the flower bed that I really like, and when the seed head dries, it will be a treat for the bluebirds.

Unless some idjit with a pack of papers, a Zippo, and a jones strolls by.