VALERIAN, a genus of herbaceous perennial plants of the natural order Valerianaceae. Two species— Valeriana officinalis, L. (see vol. iv. pl. VIII.), and V. dioica, L., —are indigenous in England, while a third, V. pyrenaica, L., is naturalized in some parts of Scotland and the west of England. The valerians have opposite leaves and small flowers, usually of a white or reddish tint, and arranged in terminal cymes. The limb of the calyx is remarkable for being at first inrolled and afterwards expanding in the form of pappus. The genus comprises about 150 species. In medicine the root of V. officinalis is intended when valerian is mentioned. The plant grows throughout Europe from Spain to the Crimea, and from Iceland through northern Europe and Asia to the coasts of Manchuria. Several varieties of the plant are known, those growing in hilly situations being considered the most valuable for medicinal purposes. Valerian is cultivated in England (in several villages near Chesterfield in Derbyshire), but to a much greater extent in Prussian Saxony (in the neighbourhood of Cölleda, north of Weimar), in Holland, and in the United States (Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York)....

VALERIANUS, Publius Licinius, Roman emperor from 253 to 260, was a man of ancient family and is first mentioned in the year 238 as princeps senatus. Some thirteen years later, when Decius restored the censorship and added to the office legislative and executive powers so extensive that it embraced the best part of the civil authority of the emperor, Valerian was chosen censor by the senate, to whom the appointment was committed. The death of Decius cut short this novel experiment in government, but Valerian retained the confidence of Gallus, who sent him to fetch troops to quell the rebellion of Aemilianus. The soldiers in Rhaetia, however, proclaimed Valerian emperor; and marching slowly towards Rome he found both his rivals dead. Valerian was already an elderly man—he is said to have been seventy years old at his death—and had scarcely the vigour to confront with success the enemies that threatened every frontier of the empire, but he applied himself to his heavy task with diligence and goodwill. Taking his son Gallienus as colleague, and leaving the wars in Europe to his direction, under which matters went from bad to worse and the whole West fell into disorder, Valerian chose for his own part the war in the East, where Antioch had fallen into the hands of a Persian vassal and Armenia was occupied by Shápúr, while in 258 the Goths ravaged Asia Minor. Valerian recovered Antioch, fought in Mesopotamia with mixed success, and finally was taken captive (see Persia, vol. xviii. p. 608). His ultimate fate is unknown.