Mullein Leaf (Verbascum thapsus): A Botanical Guide

01 What Mullein Leaf is

It is a biennial of the figwort family. Year one is the rosette: large, soft, grey-green leaves covered in dense branching hairs, which is where the woolly feel comes from. Year two is the spike — often well over a metre, studded with small yellow flowers. Then it dies.

Native to Europe, western and central Asia and North Africa, mullein has naturalised across North America, Australia and elsewhere. It is a coloniser of disturbed ground: roadsides, railway embankments, quarry edges, waste ground, gravel, thin well-drained soils in full sun. Not a woodland plant. Not a shade plant.

Several Verbascum species move through the herbal trade more or less interchangeably — V. thapsus, V. densiflorum and V. phlomoides most of all. The parts are not interchangeable. Flower (Verbasci flos) and leaf (Verbasci folium) are separate herbal materials, and most of the formal European regulatory work covers the flower. Our product uses the leaf. The seeds are not used in herbal preparations at all.

Most of the formal European regulatory work covers the flower. This is the leaf.

Commercial supply is a mixture of wild-harvested and cultivated material. Because the plant grows readily on rough and roadside ground, wild-collected stock varies more — in quality, and in what it may have been exposed to — than cultivated stock does.

Common name

Mullein, great mullein, common mullein

Latin binomial

Verbascum thapsus L.

Family

Scrophulariaceae (figwort family)

Life cycle

Biennial

Part used in our product

Leaf

Native range

Europe, western and central Asia, North Africa

Typical habitat

Open, disturbed, well-drained ground in full sun

Supply

Both wild-harvested and cultivated material is traded

02 What's in our product

ProBotanics Mullein Leaf Capsules contain a concentrated 10:1 mullein leaf extract and the capsule shell. That is the whole list.

What "10:1" actually means. It is a weight ratio of raw plant material to finished extract. Ten kilograms of dried mullein leaf are processed down to one kilogram of extract powder, so one gram of that powder represents ten grams of the original dried leaf. Each capsule states a leaf equivalent of 4,500 mg, which at 10:1 is 450 mg of extract powder in the capsule.

4,500 mg is the weight of dried leaf the powder was made from — not the weight of powder you swallow.

A ratio tells you about concentration, not content. Extraction methods differ, and a ratio guarantees no particular constituent level.

The ingredients list runs: mullein leaf extract (10:1, equivalent to 4,500 mg of mullein leaf) and cellulose, the vegetarian capsule shell. No fillers, binders, artificial additives or sweeteners. Free from gluten, soy and dairy, and free from common allergens. Suitable for vegans, non-GMO, manufactured to GMP standards.

Format

Capsules

Extract

Mullein leaf (Verbascum thapsus) 10:1 extract

Leaf equivalent per capsule

4,500 mg

Extract powder per capsule

450 mg (the 10:1 arithmetic above)

Serving size

One capsule

Capsule shell

Cellulose (vegetarian)

Other ingredients

None

Allergens

Free from gluten, soy, dairy and common allergens

Vegan

Yes

Non-GMO

Yes

Capsules per bottle

60

How long a bottle lasts

Two months at one capsule daily

Dispatch

From the UK

03 How to take it

One capsule daily, preferably with a meal and with water. Do not exceed the recommended amount.

Taking it with food is the label instruction. It also makes the routine easier to remember and avoids putting a concentrated extract into an empty stomach. Time of day is not specified, so pick the meal you will actually remember — breakfast or the main evening meal, for most people.

Swallow the capsule whole with a full glass of water, not a sip. There is no drops or liquid version of this product, so nothing to measure and no dropper technique to get right.

A food supplement is not a substitute for a varied and balanced diet or a healthy lifestyle. Keep the bottle closed, store it in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight, and keep it out of the sight and reach of children. Do not use after the best-before date on the pack.

04 Taste and format

It is a capsule, not a tea, tincture or drop. In normal use you will not taste it at all — it goes down whole and the shell dissolves afterwards.

For context: dried mullein leaf has a mild, dry, hay-like smell, closer to dried garden herbs than to anything sharp or aromatic. Concentrated extracts are darker and more bitter than the raw dried herb they came from. That is one of the practical reasons people take capsules rather than loose leaf.

Do not open the capsules to sprinkle the powder onto food or into drinks. The shell delivers a measured amount and keeps the powder off the tongue.

Small variations in the shade of the powder from bottle to bottle are normal. Mullein is a plant, harvested in batches from different fields and different seasons. Colour is not a defect.