Hoary Mullein. She sounds like the bawdy character in a medieval play. And certainly, there is nothing couth or overly refined about her – a statuesque candelabra of a plant, taller than me, with fluffy greyish leaves and often dishevelled yellow flowers.
I reach out and stroke its downy leaf, smiling as I remember that mulleins are known as “Andrex plants”, presenting as they do the ideal soft wipe for those caught short alfresco. The name “hoary” – meaning greyish white, as if with age or from the ice of a hoar frost – is a reference to its pale fluff. Wriggling motion catches my attention. A large caterpillar marked with distinctive yellow and black munches away on a leaf. It can only be the larva of the mullein moth. A bee gathers pollen, the pollen sacs on its legs turning bright orange-red like painful growths.
