cremithobs. VALERIANACEA. O87 
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. 
8. Valerianella. Stems dichotomously branched, the branchlets ter- 
minated by cymules 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-diccious; flowers in terminal often 
‘panicled cymes. . Limb of the calyx involute and concealed in the 
flowering state, evolute in fruit, formed 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. 
_ VY. edulis Nutt.T & G. FI. 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 inar- 
gined petiole, entire or some sparingly laciniate-pinnatitid: cauline rarely 
none, commonly 1-3 pairs, sessile, pinnately parted into 3-7 linear or lan- 
ceolate divisions: flowers polygamo-dicecious, 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-foliolate: cauline more or- 
less petioled, 3-11-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. 
VY. 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 pas Sabi: or of the upper ones ovate-lanceolate, 
not rarely dentate or repand: cymes contracted; corolla funnelform ; 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. Columbiana Piper Bot. (iaz xxi, 485. Stems erect from a rather: 
slender caudex 10 inches high. minntely puberulent, especially below: 
radical leaves ovate, entire obtuse at ap:‘x an inch long glabrous, their- 
petioles 2-3 times as long, narrowly murzined, puberulent; cauline 2 pairs, 
3-divided: the basal segments ovate-lanccolate, obtuse, éntire, the terimi- 
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: 
