Definition of "valerian" []

• A plant of the genus Valeriana, especially V. officinalis, native to Eurasia and widely cultivated for its small, fragrant, white to pink or lavender flowers and for use in medicine. (noun)
• The dried rhizomes of this plant, used medicinally as a sedative. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Commonly used ingredients already registered include echinacea, which is used against colds, St John's wort, used for depression and anxiety, and valerian, which is claimed to ease insomnia."
• "It is covered with a very soft, hoary, velvet-like down, and has a strong, pungent, aromatic odour, like penny royal or valerian, that is peculiarly grateful to cats, whence its specific and English names."
• "The valerian is a perennial herb, multiplying itself yearly by [403] slender rootstocks or runners producing at their tips new rosettes of leaves and in the center of these the flowering stem."