Description :

• Perennial herbs or subshrubs
• Leaves : radical ones entire or toothed, cauline ones pinnatifid or pinnatisect
• Flowers in cymes or spikes, sometimes corymbose or panicled; bracts free or sometimes connate
• Calyx sometimes reduced to a crenate ring, becoming pappus-like or developing into 5-15 plumose-ciliate bristles in fruit
• Corolla : tube campanulate, sometimes slightly gibbous at base; lobes ovate-elliptic, shorter than tube
• Stamens 3, rarely 1 or 2 aborted, exserted; filaments linear, longer than the globose anthers
• Ovary 3-locular above, 1-locular below; style terete, exserted; stigma 3-lobed
• Fruit compressed, with one nerve on back and two on face, rarely with sterile locule equalling fertile one; crowned with pappus-like calyx
• x = 7, 8 (6, 9, 11) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Valeriana L.
  • Linnaeus: 31 (1753)
  • Cannon: 75 (1983)
  • Burtt: 402 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 200, widely distributed in northern temperate regions and in W South America
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Valeriana capensis Thunb., widespread except Namibia, Botswana and Northern Cape