146 



N. Ord. VALERIANACE^J. Lindl., Yeg. K., p. 697 ; Lc Maout and 

 Dec., p. 488. 



Genus Valeriana,* Linn. B. & H., Gen., ii, p. 155. Species 

 150, natives of temperate climates in both old and new 

 worlds, principally of the northern hemisphere. 



146. Valeriana officinalis, Linn., Sp. Plant., ed. I, p. 31 (1753). 



Common Valerian. All-heal. 



Syn. V. sambucifolia, Mikan. V. angustifolia, Tausch. 



Figures. Woodville, t. 32; Hayne, iii, t. 32; Steph. & Ch., t. 54; Nees, 

 t. 254; Berg & Sch., t. 28 d; Cart., PI. Londin., fasc. 6; Syme, E. 

 Bot., iv, t. 666; Reichenb., Ic. PI. Germ., xii, tt. 726, 727 Nees, 

 Genera PL Germ. 



Description. A perennial herb with a very short upright root- 

 stock giving off numerous, slender, rather fleshy, cylindrical, 

 tapering, pale-brown roots, 3 or 4 inches long, and also often 

 sending out short runners or suckers, at the ends' of which 

 young plants are developed. Stem solitary, erect, 2 3 feet high, 

 branched only at the top, cylindrical, hollow, fluted and 

 channelled, smooth, often a little hairy at the base and just 

 beneath the nodes. Leaves few, opposite, pinnate, the lower 

 ones (soon withering) with long petioles dilated and stem-clasping 

 below, leaflets sessile, opposite or alternate, 8 20 with a 

 terminal one, f 2^ inches long, varying from oval to linear- 

 lanceolate, acute, entire or serrate on the inner or on both 

 margins, smooth, thin, shining, the upper leaves sessile, very 

 much smaller, scarcely compound and passing into bracts above. 

 Flowers small, numerous and crowded, sessile, arranged in threes 

 at the extremities of the ultimate divisions of the trichotomous, 

 compound, divaricate cymes which terminate the stem and 

 branches, the whole forming a large more or less flat-topped 

 cyme ; bracts numerous, entire, linear-acuminate, membranous. 



* Valeriana, a name first met with in use by the pharmacists and physicians 

 of the 9th or 10th centuries; of uncertain meaning and origin, but probably 

 from valeo, to be powerful, from its effects as a drug. 



