VALE RIAN. 
VALERIAN. 
AN ACCOMMODATING- DISPOSITION^ 
The Red Valerian grows naturally oil the locks 
of the Alps, and, from the facility with which it 
propagates itself in the garden or on old walls, R is 
made the emblem of ah 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 appellation, so 
long ago as the time of Edward III. 
Ther springen herbis grete and smale, 
The Licoris and the Setewale ; 
and Dr. Turner, who compiled his Herbal about 
the middle of the sixteenth century, calls it setwall. 
