It's always a pleasure to come across Valerian during walks in the woods. This great and noble white flower looks so proud! She thrones where she grows. It is always most touching to see her on her own, because she invariably chooses a piece of paradise where she will overcome her vassal, other plants and flowers.
Upright like justice and balanced like a scale, it barely swings. Yet, stems are long and lead to a collection of flowers resembling umbels (it is not yet an umbelliferous but valerianacea): they are corymbs. The flowers are tubes exploding their stamens out in the world.
The corymbs seem to be delicately coloured in pink which emphasises their lines. Indeed, if the flowers have almost white petals, they are frankly pink when they are closed and often even pinker towards the stalk. Between these contrasts and subtle layer of stamens, it gives us a flower made of cloud. We would like to sleep in a sleeping bag made of small cumulus flowers like hers.
Its finely divided leaves (seven to twenty-one leaflets: they are odd because there is a last leaflet at the tip of the branch) and its characteristic smell make Valerian easily recognisable. And if you're not sure, you can always look for a root and inhale it, as it has the exact same smell as the essential oil. Unless it's the other way round... but do it without hurting the plant which is also protected, and banned from gathering.
The scent of its roots was used, according to the legend, by the flute player who came to Hamelin in June 1284. He rid the town of rats that had spread the plague by playing the flute. He also would have used valerian to attract rats and have them follow him down to the river where they drowned. (Rats with Toxoplasma gondii reverse their aversion of cat urine into attraction.) Science of the ancients before chemistry...
Valerian has somehow fallen out of fashion. And if we can understand the reasons for its disuse, we can also understand why it tends to show the tip of its roots again. Using it had three problems.
Firstly, it takes three weeks for it to work on sleep and it has rarely been given that much time patiently.
Secondly, the plant root may make one a little nauseous. (There is no problem with the essential oil because the responsible components are absent.)
Thirdly, paradoxical effects of Valerian (contrary to the desired effects) were common when used in tablets. Indeed, the first reaction is digestive due to a lack of intestinal enzymes able to digest valerian in some people. This does not occur when you rub essential oil on the skin.
The use of essential oil earlier in history, instead of the ingestion of powdered root, may have changed the history of literature: Valerian is the key to two of the novels of Agatha Christie.