POLEMONIUM REPTANS.—CREEPING GREEK VALERIAN. 71 
The unfortunate confusion in the name results, as such seem- 
incly trifling mistakes often do, in errors of great consequence. 
The true Valerians have great medical virtues, perhaps great 
enough to warrant ancient kings fighting about them, and thus 
we find the old Herbalists, with Culpeper leading, assuring us 
that the “Greek Valerian is under Mercury, and is alexipharnic, 
-sudorific, and cephalic, and useful in malignant fevers and _pesti- 
lential distempers;” but as soon as it was proved not to be a 
Valerian, it was found that the virtues were wholly imaginary. 
Our species has been long known to botanists, being referred 
to by Gronovius in Clayton’s early collections from Virginia. It 
differs from the older known Polemontume ceruleum in its creep- 
ing habit, besides in other characters, and this characteristic 
suggested the name 7cf/ans, or “creeping Greek Valerian.” In 
Pennsylvania, where it is common in alluvial bottoms along rivers 
and water-courses, it is often called “Forget-me-not;” but as it 
has nothing in common with 
“The flower which has a flower as bright as noon, 
And leaf as delicate as softest satin, 
Called the Forget-me-not, but known as well 
By twenty names I cannot stop to tell,” 
as Sargent sings of it, it would be as well to let it drop. “Jacob's 
Ladder” is sometimes used because of its ladder-like leaf. It is 
well to refer to these names ina history of the plant; but “creeping 
Greek Valerian” will probably prevail. It is one of the earliest 
of our spring flowers, and brightens with a singular beauty the 
half-shady places wherein it loves to grow. Longfellow, in his 
beautiful poem, “Flowers,” scarcely had this plant in his mind 
when he wrote— 
“ Everywhere about us are they growing, 
Some like stars to tell us Spring is come; 
Others, their blue eyes with tears o’erflowing, 
Stand like Ruth among the golden corn; ” 
as the “blue eyes” of our speeies seldom if ever look at us from 
grain-fields; but as we may often see its beautiful sky-blue flow- 
