Skip to content

Your account

With an account, your progress (modules read, XP, badges, cards, notebook, pack, challenges) follows you on every device. Without one, it stays in this browser.

or
Harmless💊 Medicinal

🌸 Valerian

Valeriana officinalis · Caprifoliaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🏔️ Mountains
🧠 To remember it“Valerian: sweet-smelling flower, sock-smelling root” — the contrast between the delicate floral fragrance and the strong dried root odor is the best cue to remember this sleep remedy plant.
Valerian — Valeriana officinalis

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Tall plant of damp areas, with an erect, hollow, fluted stem, pinnately compound leaves with narrow toothed leaflets, crowned in summer by a dense corymb of tiny, highly fragrant pinkish-white flowers. It is the root, with its strong and peculiar smell (often described as "socks" or "old cheese"), that is used in sleep herbal medicine.

  1. erect, hollow, fluted stem, unbranched until the inflorescence
  2. opposite, pinnately compound leaves, 6-10 pairs of narrow toothed leaflets
  3. dense corymb of tiny pinkish-white flowers with 5 fused petals, highly fragrant, at the stem tips
  4. strong, distinctive dried root smell (often compared to an old sock), very different from the sweet floral scent
  5. grows in clumps in damp areas, meadows, and along riverbanks
Size60-150 cm
Floweringjuin-août
Habitatdamp meadows, riverbanks and ditches, tall-herb communities

💊 Healing with it

well-established medical use recognized by the EMA (HMPC monograph) for the relief of mild nervous tension and sleep disorders, using the dried root

Level of evidence : solid studies — EMA — monographie Valeriana officinalis L., radix

⚠️ can cause residual drowsiness the next day; avoid combining with alcohol or other sedatives; not recommended during pregnancy and breastfeeding due to lack of data

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • cats are attracted to valerian root scent similarly to catnip, an effect linked to similar volatile compounds
Sources (2)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.