VALE M ANA. VALERIANACE.E. 287 



1. Valeriana. Mostly tall perennial herbs with simple or sparingly 

 branched stems; corolla salverform, the limb not spurred. 



* * Limb of the calyx obsolete. 



2. Plectritis. Stems often simple, at least not dichotomous : cymes 

 thyrsoidly congested at the summit of the stem or branches : corolla 

 gibbous or spurred at base : fruit usually winged laterally. 



3. Valerianella. Stems dichotomously branched, the branchlets ter- 

 minated by cyniules of small flowers : fruit not winged. 



1 VALERIANA Tourn 



Perennial herbs with strong-scented mostly thickened root- 

 stocks or roots, simple or pinnate leaves and white or flesh col- 

 ored perfect or polygamo-dioecious; flowers in terminal often 

 panicled cymes. Limb of the calyx involute and concealed in the 

 flowering state, evolute in fruit, iormed of several plumose bris- 

 tles, deciduous. Corolla with more or less cylindrical or obcon- 

 ical tube, which is often gibbous but not spurred at base, the 

 limb about equally 5-lobed. Stamens 3 ; abortive cells of the 

 ovary small or obscure, obliterated in the achene-like fruit. 



V. edulis Nutt. T & G. Fl. ii, 48. Glabrous or glabrate; the nas- 

 cent herbage tomentulose-puberulent sometimes remaining so on the 

 leaf margins, stems erect, from a large fusiform perpendicular stock that 

 branches below into thickened roots, 1-3 feet high *. leaves thickish, ner- 

 vously veined, the radical oblanceolate to spatulate, tapering into a mar- 

 gined petiole, entire or some sparingly laciniate-pinnatifid : cauline rarely 

 none, commonly 1-3 pairs, sessile, pinnately parted into 3-7 linear or lan- 

 ceolate divisions : flowers polygamo-dioecious, yellowish white, sessile in 

 the cymules which form an elongated thyrsiform naked panicle, fruit 

 ovate, puberulent or glabrous. Wet plains" and prairies, eastern Oregon 

 to British Columbia, east to the Rocky Mountains and Ohio. 



V. sylvatica Banks Richard App. Frankl. Journ. ed 2, 2. Stems erect 

 from creeping rootstocks 8-10 inches high : radical leaves mostly simple, 

 ovate to oblong, sometimes some of them 3-5-fpliolate : cauline more or 

 less petioled, 3-1 1-foliolate or parted, the divisions entire or rarely few- 

 toothed : flowers more or less dimorphous ; corolla light rose-color, 2-3 

 lines long or more, the tube short: stigma nearly entire : fruiting cyme 

 open, at length thyrsoid-paniculate. Wet mountain valleys, California to 

 British Columbia and across the continent. 



V. Sitchensis Bong. Veg. Sitch. 145. Stems rather stout, 1-5 feet 

 high, often branching: radical leaves mostly 3-5-foliolate, the terminal 

 one always much the largest: cauline short petioled, 3-5-foliolate, the 

 divisions orbicular to oblong-ovate or of the upper ones ovate-lanceolate, 

 not rarely dentate or repand: cymes contracted; corolla f unnelform ; 3-4 

 lines long; white or more commonly pinkish : stigma entire. In moist 

 woods and wet places, uregon to Alaska and the northern Rocky 

 Mountains. 



V Columbian a Piper But. Gaz xxi, 485. Stems erect from a rather 

 slender caudex 10 inches high, minmely puberulent, especially below: 

 radical leaves ovate, entire obtuse at ap x an inch long glabrous, their 

 petioles 2-3 times as long, narrowly in ir^ine-1, puberulent; cauline 2 pairs, 

 3-divided: the basal segments ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, entire, the termi- 

 nal segment 3-cleft into ovate-acutish lobes ; petioles as long as the blade 

 or shorter, nearly glabrous: inflorescence loosely cymose, the whitish 

 flowers sessile in the cymules: peduncles puberulent: corolla seven lines 



