POLEMONIUM FAMILY POLEMONIACEAE 
GREEK VALERIAN. JACOB’S LADDER 
Polemonium reptans L. 
The Greek Valerian or Jacob’s Ladder is another of the very 
beautiful flowers for which the Polemonium family is noted, 
and is easily grown in gardens. It is a perennial of open hilly 
woods from New York 
to Minnesota and south 
to Georgia and Kansas. 
The plant is smooth 
or nearly so throughout. 
The slender, much 
branched stems are weak 
and spreading, in 
clump usually not more 
than 1 foot high from a 
short underground stem. 
Leaflets of the alternate 
compound leaves are 
Rone: 
Handsome light blue 
flowers are produced in 
large numbers from April 
to June. The bell-shaped 
calyx is green and 5- 
lobed. The blue corolla 
is also bell shaped and 
has a spreading 5-lobed 
limb. The 5 stamens 
attached to the corolla 
near the base of its tube 
often do not extend beyond it. The filaments are somewhat hairy 
at the base. The pistil consists of a 3-celled ovary, a long slender 
style and 3 stigmas. The flowers are quite variable in size and 
occasionally may be pink or white. Unlike Ph/ox, the Greek 
Valerian depends largely on bees instead of butterflies for polli- 
nation of its flowers. | 
The fruit is a dry capsule. There are usually 3 or 4 ovules in 
each cell of the ovary but the mature capsule ordinarily con- 
tains only 3 seeds. These are wingless or narrowly winged, and 
somewhat mucilaginous when wet. 
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