f'S
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VALERIAN A pyrenaica.
Heart-leaved Valerian.
TRIANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. Char. Cal. none. Cor. of 1 petal, superior*
gibbous on one side at the base. Seed one.
Spec. Char. Stamens three. Stem-leaves heart-shaped*
serrated, on fo o ts ta lk s : the uppermost pinnated.
Syn. Valeriana pyrenaica. Linn. Sp. PI. 46. Don.
Herb. B r it, fa s c . 4. 7 7 .
T h i s is unquestionably a native of Scotland, though never
mentioned in any British Flora till Mr. G. Don published a
specimen in his Herbarium Britannicum, a work rich in rare
plants, particularly of the class Cryptogamia. That accurate
botanist first discovered the Valeriana pyrenaica about ditches
and walls at Blair-Adam, Kinross-shire, in 1782, and afterwards
gathered it about Glasgow and Edinburgh. To him we
are obliged for a specimen. We have also been favoured with
others from Dr. Brown, Lecturer on Botany in the University
of Glasgow, who has observed this plant several years ago at
Daldowie 6 miles from thence, and also in woods at Cumbernauld
and Pollok, situations remote from each other, separated
by hills, and watered by different rivers.
It is a perennial species, flowering in the middle of summer,
and possessing the smell, probably the virtues, of V. officinalis.
The stems are 2 or 3 feet high, leafy, downy at the summit
only. Leaves on footstalks, heartshaped, ovate, acute, smooth,
sharply and unequally • serrated: the radical, and often the
lower stem-leaves, simple; the uppermost accompanied by
one or two pair of small lanceolate leaflets. Flowers red or
flesh-coloured, in a large, terminal, compound corymbus.
Spur obsolete. Stamens 3. Seed furrowed, crowned with
feathery rays.
This seems to be a rare plant on the continent, not being
mentioned by the Swedish, German or Swiss writers, nor by
the French, except Lamarck; neither does it occur in Allioni
or Scopoli.
SSI