VALERIAN. 131 
VALERIAN. 
AN ACCOMMODATING DISPOSITION. 
The Red Valerian grows naturally on the rocks 
of the Alps, and, from the facility with which it 
propagates itself in the garden or on old walls, it is 
made the emblem of an accommodating disposition. 
If not indigenous in this country, it is conjectured 
to have been introduced very early, on account 
of the situations where it is found growing, which 
are generally the old walls of colleges, or the ruins 
of monastic buildings. 
From its predilection for such situations, this 
plant no doubt derived its old English name of Sete- 
wale. Chaucer mentions it by this apellation, so 
long ago as the time of Edward III. 
Ther springen herbis grele and smale, 
The Licoris and the Setewale ; 
and Dr. Turner, who compiled his Herbal about 
the middle of the sixteenth century, calls it setwall. 
