VALERIAN TRIBE 115 



this plant, having from six to ten pairs of leaflets, either entire or toothed 

 at the margins, and with spreading leaf-stalks, is described by some writers 

 as F". mikani ; w^hile another form of the plant, having the lower and middle 

 leaf-stalks erect and closely pressed, and its toothed and serrated leaves of 

 four or five pairs of leaflets, has been termed K snmbucifolia. The former is 

 more generally met, the latter being very local. It is pleasant, during June, 

 to wander by the river bank, watching the gauzy-winged insects as they 

 dance in the sunbeams, and the swallows which skim over the pool, or the 

 scarcely less graceful water-wagtails hovering above the water. Few spots of 

 our landscape are at this season more attractive to the lover of Nature than 

 such a one as Chaucer seems to have loved so well : — 



" A river in a greene mede, 

 There as sweetnesse evirinore inough is, 

 With flowre white and blewe, yellowe and redo." 



And few of the flowers gathering there among grass and sedge are more 

 conspicuous than the tall Valerian, which grows on the river's brink, or just 

 within the water. It is commonly three feet high, and sometimes, when the 

 river runs over a chalky soil, it is four, or even five feet in height. In such 

 cases, as the eye follows the windings of the waters, we may see the plant 

 giving its hue to the margin by its delioately-tinted clusters of pale pink, 

 1)ecoming almost white when fully developed, and mingling, perhaps, with 

 other specimens from which the flowers have passed away, leaving behind the 

 clusters of feathery down so soon to be widely scattered by autumnal winds. 

 To many of us, the powerful scent of the Valerian is unpleasing ; but this 

 odour, still stronger in the roots, is much prized in the East, some of the 

 most valued perfumes being made from the roots of various species. The 

 celebrated Celtic Spikenard {V. celtica) is much used in Eastern perfumery, 

 and in baths ; the V. jafamansi is believed to be the Spikenard of the 

 Scripture writers and the Nardus of the ancients ; and it is still used in the 

 unguents of the East, as it was when Mary poured it on the Saviour from the 

 costly box of alabaster. Sir William Jones, by his knowledge of the Sanscrit 

 and Hindoo names of the plant, identified it with the ancient Spikenard; but 

 he had no access to the Himalayan Mountains, where it grew. Dr. Royle, 

 however, who was, several years later, in charge of the East India Company's 

 garden at Seharumpore, not far from the foot of the Himalayas, made 

 further inquiries into the subject. He then learnt that Jatamansi, better 

 knoAvn in India by the name of Balchur, was yearly brought down in con- 

 siderable quantities, as an article of commerce, to the plains of India ; and 

 having procured fresh roots, he planted them in the Botanic garden. He 

 then found the plant to be a Valerian. It was called Nardostachys jatamansi 

 by M. de Candolle, and there seems no reason to doubt that this was the nard 

 or nerd of the ancients. The Arabs compare the root to the tail of an 

 ermine, which it much resembles ; this appearance being produced by the 

 circumstance that the woody fibres of the leaf and its footstalk are not 

 decomposed in the cold and comparatively dry climate where they are pro- 

 duced, but remain, and thus form a protection for the plant from the severity 

 of the weather. Dr. Joseph Hooker, when in the Himalayan Mountains, 

 received this plant with the eggs and rice brought to him as a gift. He says 



15—2 



