146 VALERIANA OFFICINAL1S 



Calyx-tube combined with the ovary, the limb small and ring- 

 like, lobed, the lobes curled inwards. Corolla about J inch wide, 

 pale pink, with a narrowly funnel-shaped tube, gibbous at the 

 base below, and 5 nearly equal, spreading, broadly oblong, 

 rounded lobes, the odd one inferior, the tube hairy within. 

 Stamens 3, inserted about half way down the tube of the corolla 

 and alternating with its lobes (the posterior and one of the 

 anterior ones being suppressed), much exserted, anthers small, two- 

 celled, yellow. Ovary inferior laterally compressed, smooth, one- 

 celled (2 suppressed) with a single pendulous anatropous ovule, 

 style a little longer than the corolla-tube, stigma 3-fid. Fruit 

 scarcely 5 inch long, ovate-oblong in form, plane-convex, com- 

 pressed, with 3 prominent ribs on the convex, and 1 on the plane 

 side, pale brown, smooth, indehiscent, crowned with the persistent 

 calyx-lobes which have developed into elegant curved feathery 

 plumes (pappus). Seed solitary, filling the fruit-cavity, straight, 

 with large flat obovate cotyledons ; no endosperm. 



Habitat. Valerian is a common plant in all parts of this 

 country, growing in damp ground, both in woods and open 

 places. It has a very extensive distribution from Iceland, Arctic 

 Europe and Asia to the Mediterranean, Crimea, West Asia and 

 Japan, and several forms are distinguished. The plant with 

 fewer and wider leaflets (V. sambuci folia, Mikan) is by far 

 the most common in England, and is partial to more wet places 

 than the form figured, var. Mikanii, Syme, which is found 

 more rarely, in upland pastures, especially chalky banks and 

 similar places. 



Valerian is cultivated for use near Chesterfield in Derbyshire, 

 also in Holland, and near New York, and some other parts of 

 the United States. 



Syme, E. Bot., iv, p. 236 ; Hook, f., Stud. PI., p. 181 ; Watson, 

 Comp. Cyb. Brit., p. 205; Gren. & Godr., PI. France, ii, p. 54; 

 Ledebour, PI. Ross, ii, p. 438 ; Franchet & Savatier, Enum. 

 Plant. Japon., i, p. 217. 



Official Part and Names. VALEEIAN^E RADIX ; the dried root, 

 from plants indigenous to, and also cultivated in, Britain; col- 



