Although some of those seeds will sprout next year, others will lie dormant for up to a century waiting for the open unshaded conditions necessary to their growth. Mullein is a biennial or occasionally a triennial. The first year or two it grows only as a low rosette of spreading, soft green and velvety leaves. In its final year it expends the energy it stored in its youth to send up its tall spike. Most often single stemmed, a few large plants will support two to four vertical racemes.
Upper leaves hug the stem, thus leading water down toward the thirsty roots.
There are over forty folk names for this plant. A more interesting name is Quaker's rouge. Young women can redden their cheeks without the use of makeup, forbidden to Quakers, by brushing them with mullein leaves. This is not a recommended practice as the skin is reacting to tiny barbed leaf hairs, the same hairs that deter cattle. That is why you often see mulleins standing in otherwise closely cropped fields.