A biennial plant, with a straight, tall, stout, woolly, generally simple stem, occasionally with 1 or 2 branches above, winged by the decurrent bases of the leaves, and from 3 to 5 feet high. Its leaves are alternate, oblong, acute, decurrent, indented at the margin, rough, and densely tomentose on both sides. The flowers are of a golden-yellow color, rotate, nearly sessile, in a dense, spiked, club-shaped raceme; calyx 5-parted and downy; corolla 5-lobed, rotate, lobes broad, rounded, and somewhat unequal; stamens 5, the two lower smooth, the rest downy. Capsule or pod ovoid-globose, 2-valved, and many-seeded.

Expectorant, soothing and healing (all acting together), kills bacteria, antiinflammatory and mildly antispasmodic and diuretic; anodyne, antiseptic, astringent, demulcent, emollient, expectorant and vulnerary (flowers and leaves);

Plants for a Future

Mucilage, carotenoids, flavonoid glycosides (such as hesperin) and a small quantity of an essential oil.

In upper respiratory tract maladies, especially those associated with catarrh,chills and cough; as an antispasmodic and diuretic in maladies of children; in inflammations within the bowel, hemorrhoids and as a fomentation for varicose ulcers.

Stary, Medicinal Herbs and Plants.