This stuff is very common but does not colonize heavily. It was imported from Europe in the 1700's, and well may have spread to eastern Kansas along with the settlers who came to places like Lawrence. The stuff growing next to the house at Hobb's Park is way more healthy than what you usually see growing in the country. For this ink drawing I was looking up at some of the spikes. I suppose it is the city that maintains most of the stuff growing there, but I can't imagine them maintaining this patch of mullein. It was late in the season and most of the flowers were dried and the minuscule petals fallen. This patch is on the south side of the house as I approached, so I could not resist an ink drawing in the 9 x 12 inch pad that I had with me.
As I was standing on the sidewalk around the house it was nearly evening and I was going to have to quit drawing soon and head home. Just then here comes a neighbor of the park area wanting to strike up a conversation. It was Mark Kaplan, the fellow who sorta “spear-headed” the project of moving the Murphy-Bromelsick house and using it as the center piece of a memorial of the Civil War, the Jay-hawkers, Quantrell's Raid, and the Abolitionist newspaper man John Speer. Mr. Kaplan had no idea who I was or why I was there, but was glad to offer his take on the topic of Lawrence and its relationship to Civil War history, as well as to offer me any assistance I may need for whatever. I guess a friend of the old house is a friend of his.
Although this park is in east Lawrence, in 1866 it was not east Lawrence, it was east of Lawrence; it was a cornfield in which Mr. Speer hid during Quantrell's Massacre. Lawrence was a bustling little town of a couple thousand people.
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