Verbascum blattaria

Moth mullein, Moth Mullein

Family: Scrophulariaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Moth mullein is a naturalized annual found in northwestern California, the high Cascade Range, northern Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, western Transverse Ranges, southern coastal California, and desert mountains at elevations of 10 to 1,660 meters in roadsides, seeps, streambanks, and disturbed grasslands. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces yellow or white flowers 25 to 30 millimeters wide with distinctive purple-hairy stamens. Growing 30 to 120 centimeters tall with occasionally branched stems, it forms upright plants with a glabrous lower portion. Its leaves vary from basal oblanceolate leaves 4 to 25 centimeters long with crenate edges to sessile cauline leaves that are elliptic to ovate and dentate. The fruit is a small spherical capsule 6 to 8 millimeters in diameter.

Habitat: Roadsides, seeps, streambanks, disturbed grassland, foothill woodland, chaparral, yellow-pine forest

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 10-1660 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRF, n SN, GV, SnFrB, WTR, SnGb, PR (exc SnJt), MP (exc Wrn)

California counties: Amador, Los Angeles, Shasta, Placer, Plumas, Tuolumne, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Del Norte, Siskiyou, Butte, Lake, San Diego, Humboldt, Mendocino, San Joaquin, El Dorado, Calaveras, Modoc, Sacramento, Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, Yuba, Lassen, Merced, Napa, Madera, Yolo, Contra Costa, Stanislaus, Trinity, Alameda, Ventura, Sierra, Nevada, Solano, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Monterey

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.