VALERIANA.—VALERIAN. History and Description

History and Description.—Valerian is a European plant growing in wet places, or even in dry pastures, flowering in June and July. The plant thrives best in a light, dry soil; that growing in low, wet situations is not so active, therapeutically. Botanists have given distinctive variety names to these two kinds, which differ in habit of growth. Valerian is also cultivated in this country, especially in Vermont and New Hampshire, and is fully equal, if not superior, to that of English growth. The valerian of American growth has almost entirely superseded the foreign in this country. The medicinal part of the plant is the root, which should be gathered soon after the leaves have fallen, and carefully dried. The U. S. P. describes the drug to be a "rhizome from 2 to 4 Cm. (⅘ to 1⅗ inches) long, and 1 to 2 Cm. (⅖ to ⅘ inch) thick, upright, subglobular or obconical, truncate at both ends, brown or yellowish-brown, internally whitish or pale-brownish, with a narrow circle of white wood under the thin bark. Roots numerous, slender, brittle, brown, with a thick bark, and slender, ligneous cord. Odor peculiar, becoming stronger and unpleasant on keeping; taste, camphoraceous and somewhat bitter"—(U. S. P.). The odor of the dry root is fetid, characteristic, and highly attractive to cats, and, it is said, to rats also. The root imparts its properties readily to water, alcohol, and ammoniated alcohol.