Verbascum

Robust, erect, usually biennial herbs, mainly unbranched, pubescent. Leaves entire, variously shaped, toothed or lobed, basal ones forming a rosette, others alternate, very rarely opposite, decurrent. Flowers solitary or in groups of 2-5, axillary, bracteate, in lax to dense terminal raceme, shortly pedicellate, sometimes bibracteolate at base. Calyx equally 5-lobed, lobes imbricate in bud, glandular hairy. Corolla barely tubular, subregular, 5-lobed, usually yellow; tube very short, narrow or sometimes somewhat campanulate; lobes rotate, broad and +/- equal, upper lobes exterior in bud. Stamens 4 or 5, sometimes 4 fertile and 1 staminode; filaments usually villous; anthers of 2 kinds: posterior ones always reniform and transversely medifixed, anterior ones similar or not (in * V. virgatum anthers oblong, decurrent or at least obliquely inserted on filament); anthers unithecate by confluence. Ovary bilocular; ovules many; style elongated, entire, thickened towards stigmatose apex. Fruit a globular, septicidally bivalved capsule; valves usually bifid, exposing central placentiferous column. Seeds ovoid or oblong, alveolate with hollows in 6-9 longitudinal rows, not winged. x = 8, 9, 15 (7, 11, 12, 13, 17) (B-chromosomes-1 report, aneuploids, high polyploidy).