Valerian root (Valerina officianalis)
By Pertinax
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bringer of sleep and calmer of pain-found in the excavated gardens and stores at Pompeii. A strong nervine still in commercial use today. This root is synthesised to produce Vallium.Readily available in its true state as a herbal medicine in Britain.
Quite a bundle of chemical components-the sedative properties appear to be due to the valepotriates (and some of their degradation products).Iridoids and alkoloids are also present.There is an interesting cytotoxic and antitumor activity associated with the valepotriates (as it inhibits synthesis of DNA and proteins).
NB: I use it also (with a very high dose of Vitamin B full complex) to reduce the intense nerve pain of shingles (herpes zoster).Pliny says to be used for "pains in the chest or side" so I merely follow his directions!Dioscorides concurs.
heres a quote on the origin of the name -phu! as in yuck 
..."The derivation of the name of this genus of plants is differently given. It is said by some authors to have been named after Valerius, who first used it in medicine; while others derive the name from the Latin word valere (to be in health), on account of its medicinal qualities. The word Valeriana is not found in the classical authors; we first meet with it in the ninth or tenth century, at which period and for long afterwards it was used as synonymous with Phu or Fu; Fu, id est valeriana, we find it described in ancient medical works of that period. The word Valerian occurs in the recipes of the AngloSaxon leeches (eleventh century). Valeriana, Amantilla and Fu are used as synonymous in the Alphita, a mediaeval vocabulary of the important medical school of Salernum. Saladinus of Ascoli (about 1450) directs the collection in the month of August of radices fu, id est Valerianae. Referring to the name Amantilla, by which it was known in the fourteenth century, Professor Henslow quotes a curious recipe of that period, a translation of which runs as follows: 'Men who begin to fight and when you wish to stop them, give to them the juice of Amantilla id est Valeriana and peace will be made immediately.' Theriacaria, Marinella, Genicularis and Terdina are other old names by which Valerian has been known in former days. Another old name met with in Chaucer and other old writers is 'Setwall' or 'Setewale,' the derivation of which is uncertain. Mediaeval herbalists also called the plant 'Capon's Tail,' which has rather fantastically been explained as a reference to its spreading head of whitish flower"
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