Of ancient repute

With its ability to rouge cheeks, settle stomachs and operate as Nature's loo roll, verbascum is as surprisingly useful as it is pretty, discovers Ian Morton

- Ian Morton

OF all the plants generous to Mankind, verbascum is surely one of the foremost. Many of its folkloric names reveal its sundry practical uses throughout the ages; others have a Biblical whiff or are simply bewildering, their basis lost in time. For medieval women who sought to bring colour to their cheeks, verbascum was known as Quaker's rouge, a rub of its hairy leaves on delicate skin producing the desired flush. Medieval religion dubbed it Adam's flannel and Moses's blanket and its tall stalk was Adam's or Aaron's rod. Meanwhile, rural folk spoke of hare's beard, velvet dock, feltwort, shepherd's club and beggar's blanket.

The dried stalks were the basis of torches from Roman times and, before cotton came into use, they served as the core for tallow candles, adding hag candlewick, hag's taper and torch-wort to its folkloric nomenclature. In the American West, to which this plant (native to Europe and the Middle East) was introduced early in the 18th century, those same leaves were known as cowboys' loo paper. Gardeners, however, simply know it as verbascum or as common, great or greater mullein, from the Anglo-French term for 'soft'.