Il4 VALEklANE^ 



1. Spur Valerian (CentrdnfJivs). 



Red Spur Valerian {0. ruber). — Leaves egg-shaped, pointed; spur 

 much shorter than the tube of the corolla ; root perennial. This plant, with 

 its large handsome clusters, varying from delicate pink to rich deep red, is a 

 very common garden flower. It is not a truly British species, but is 

 naturalized in many chalk-pits and limestone quarries ; and it often grows on 

 old walls, where it is the outcast of the flower-bed, or sometimes on castle- 

 steep or church-tower. The gardener calls it by various familiar names, as 

 Pretty Betty, but of old it was called Setewall. From several sources, we 

 know it was a plant of some renown. The old writers seem to include the 

 great wild Valerian in the same name, but as the red species grows on walls, 

 it originally, doubtless, belonged to this. 



The stem of this species is from one to two feet high, and its flowers 

 appear from April to September, a variety with white blossoms sometimes 

 occurring. The practical efiect of the spur is to increase the length of the 

 long flower tube and render the honey accessible only to insects with long 

 tongues. The leaves are smooth, and covered with a sea-green powder. 

 The French term the plant VaJeriana, the Germans call it Baldrian, and the 

 Kussians Balderian. Its native country is the south of Europe, and in Sicily 

 the leaves are commonly eaten as a salad ; the seeds of some species were 

 formei'ly used in embalming the dead. 



It is interesting to note the simple method by which cross-fertilization is 

 assured, provided that insect visits are made to the flowers. The solitary 

 stamen first stands erectly at the mouth of the flower and sheds its pollen ; 

 afterwards the style rises to the same position and matures its stigmas, so 

 that a bee that has visited an older flower and got dusted with pollen is 

 likely to bring the same part of its body in contact with the stigma and so 

 fertilize it. 



2. Valerian (Faleridna). 



1. Small Marsh Valerian (/'. didica). — Stamens and pistils on ditierent 

 plants ; root-leaves egg-shaped, stalked ; stem-leaves pinnatifid, with a large 

 terminal lobe, serrated ; root perennial. This small species is common in 

 moist meadows, its erect and unbranched stem being about a foot high, and 

 surmounted, in May, by its corymb of pale pink flowers, of which the stamen- 

 bearing corollas are larger than the others. 



There are really four forms of flowers to be found on as many plants : 

 1, the largest of all, contains stamens but no pistil ; 2, the next largest, 

 contains stamens and a rudimentary pistil ; 3, smaller, contains a fully 

 developed pistil, but the anthers are only rudimentary and produce no pollen ; 

 ■i, the smallest of all, contains a pistil but no anthers. By this arrangement 

 cross-fertilization is certain, through the agency of insects that seek the 

 honey with which the flowers are provided. The presence of the rudimentary 

 organs points to the probability that the flowers formerly contained both 

 stamens and pistil, as in V. officinalis. 



2. Great Wild Valerian (T\ nfficindlis). — Leaves all pinnatifid ; leaflets 

 lanceolate, nearly uniform ; root with short subterranean shoots. A form of 



