Valeriana

  • Authority

    Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro. 2005. Vines and climbing plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 51: 1-483.

  • Family

    Caprifoliaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Valeriana

  • Description

    Description - Herbs or less frequently herbaceous vines, twining or scandent, glabrous or pubescent, usually with a fetid odor. Leaves opposite, simple, entire, dentate, trifoliolate, pinnate, or pinnatisect; stipules absent. Flowers actinomorphic or slightly zygomorphic, bisexual or rarely unisexual, produced in terminal or axillary dichasial cymes; bracts and bracteoles present. Calyx tubular, with 5-20 lobes. dentate, setose or plumose; corolla infundibuliform, campanulate, or hypocrateriform, the tube short, the lobes 5, expanded; stamens 3(4). adnate to the throat, included or exserted, the anthers sessile; ovary inferior. 3-carpellate. the carpels with a single ovule, the stigma 2-3-lobate. Fruit a dry indehiscent achene with a single fertile carpel, crowned by the plumose sepals. An almost cosmopolitan genus, of approximately 250 species.