VALERIANA. 



V. chngata is a Leafy little Valerian of no attraction beyond its 

 fragrance, whose greenish flower-spires of 4 or 5 inches may be seen 

 above the loose and shining clumps of dark given foliage here and 

 there in the high limestone crevices and screes of the Southern and 

 Eastern ranges. 



V. celtica is the famous Nard. All over the occasional alps where 

 the Speik abounds, its collection is an occupation and almost a ritual, 

 and the intensely sweet little plant (in all its parts), serves for em- 

 balming, incensing, and disinfecting. It spreads in the high tun, 

 ially on non-calcareous ranges, and, where found, is most profuse. 

 The small oval leaves, diminishing lengthily to their base, are bright 

 green, springing in tufts from a woody thick stock that wanders far ; 

 the grooved brittle stems rise up 4 or 5 inches in early summer, bearing 

 a loose spire of small and perfectly dull stars of dirty brownish-yellow. 



V. globulariaefolia lives in the Pyrenees, and attains 3 or 4 inches, 

 bearing rather large heads of pink blossom above the basal clumps of 

 small leaves, which are oval and undivided, while those on the stems 

 are feathered like those of a scabious. Here also the stem is grooved.. 

 and the plant intensely sweet. 



V. longiflora is another Spanish mountaineer of the same habits 

 and size, but blooming, not in !May and June only, but far on into the 

 later summer. 



r 



V. oliganthu stands 6 inches or more, and has the common weedy 

 look that so blunts the attractions of so many Valerians, whose 

 descriptions would be found alluring, while their realisation would 

 sadly disappoint, such is the lack of personality and distinction in the 

 family. 



V. saliunca is better than the last. It makes dense masses of 

 oval small undivided leaves of dark green in the high places and stony 

 ridges of the granitic ranges here and there, and sends up in summer 

 flattened heads of pink flowers, intensely sweet, on many stems of 

 2 or 3 inches. 



T\ supina, however, is not only the one species of the race for which 

 the rock-garden positively asks, but would always, in ever}' race, be 

 accounted a treasure. It is not a common species, but may be found 

 in rather cool and damp slopes of broken soil and scree and mud, in 

 the high places of the Eastern ranges (as in the great couloirs along the 

 side of the Schlern. descending into the gloom of the Barenloch). making 

 wide packed masses of small dark oval leaves, fringed with fine hair, 

 and virtually toothless at the edg are almost hidden from 



view by the profusion, in summer, of almost stemless heads, loose and 

 v.t -11 -arranged, of comparatively large and solid and distinct flowers 



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