Plant Story--Red valerian, Jupiter's beard, Valeriana rubra, Centranthus ruber

The plant is called red valerian or Jupiter's beard. Here's a picture

red valerian, Jupiter's beard,
Valeriana rubra formerly Centranthus ruber

'Native to Europe, it is an easy to grow, attractive garden flower, quite tolerant of poor soils. In the western U.S. it can be quite weedy, but it doesn't seem to be a problem in the eastern U.S. Parts of Europe find it too aggressive, even though it is native in southern Europe, and its a problem weed in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. 

I learned its common name as red valerian. Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) has been a major medicinal herb in Eurasia for millennia, treating insomnia and nervous tension. Valerian, usually just called valerian, but also common valerian and fragrant valerian. I will use fragrant valerian for clarity. Fragrant valerian has white flowers, sometimes slightly pink. Red valerian is related to fragrant valerian; both were in the same plant family, the valerian family, Valerianaceae, and both were recently transferred into the honey suckle family, Caprifoliaceae. (The Valerianaceae no longer exists). Folk medicine has used red valerian for the same complaints as fragrant valerian, although it has much less of the active ingredients. 

red valerian, Valeriana rubra

Less common common names for red valerian are red-spur valerian, spur valerian, Spanish valerian, kiss-me-quick, fox's brush, devil's beard, keys-to-heaven, scarlet lightning, Bovisand sailor (Bovisand is in Devon, England), bouncing bess, delicate bess, drunken sailor, pretty bessy, and German lilac.

The current scientific name is Valeriana rubra, but almost no one knows that. Valeriana means "strong" or "healthy" in Latin and is the name the Romans used for fragrant valerian. The species epithets rubra and ruber mean "red." When Linneaus named the plant in the mid 1700s, he called it Valeriana rubra, seeing many similarities to Valeriana officinalis and other valerians. From 1802, botanists have proposed that red valerian and a number of similar plants from southern Europe should be separate from Valeriania, proposing the genus Centranthus. That gradually caught on and so, for the last century and more, red valerian's scientic name has been Centranthus ruber. But DNA studies of relationships, starting about 2005, showed Centranthus as a subgroup of Valeriana. Botanical naming rules require either including a subgroup in the larger group it belongs to (Centranthus species become Valeriana species) or the larger group must be broken into equivalent subgroups (that would break up Valeriana into many parts--there are some 1142 species of Valeriana, 11 or 12 of them Centranthus). The result was to choose to merge the dozen species of Centranthus back into Valeriana, so red valerian becomes Valeriana rubra, again. (The molecular data is very strong that the species of Centranthus are a subgroup of Valeriana; see De Castro et al. 2025 in references).

red valerian, Valeriana rubra

I think that is wonderful: I had a hard time learning Centranthus as the genus for red valerian. And soon, people can learn red valerian/ Valeriana rubra easily. But alas, a century of saying Centranthus means websites of all sorts, and books published up until just about now all list red valerian as Centranthus ruber, so learning the name Centranthus remains esssential to finding the plant.

The common names make it even harder to find this plant. Jupiter's beard is the common name used on a lot of sites selling it. One source I read had no idea why it was called Jupiter's beard, and wondered about it looking like a red beard. Googling "Jupiter", his beard was normally portrayed as white, very occassionally black. Another source said was that the beard refers to red valerian's seeds, which have white hairs that let them fly through the air. Covered in white-haired seeds, it might look like Jupiter's beard. 

Finding a photo of the plant with seed on it is very difficult; I never found one online. This is mine from Ireland. You can see the white hairs that surround each seed and carry it in the air. Will they make a plant going to seed into "Jupiter's beard"? Perhaps. 

Seeds with white hairs, red valerian 

Be aware, though, that Jupiter's beard is also the common name a legume, Anthyllis barba-jovis found in Greece and neighboring countries (barba-jovis = "Jove/Jupiter's beard"), and of the common houseleek, Sempervivum techtorum (a succulent in the sedum family, Crassulaceae). The first couple pages of my Google search brought up only red valerian as Jupiter's beard, so that is clearly the common name usually used in the United States. 

Carried all over the world, red valerian is a pretty garden plant. Tolerant of poor and alkaline soils, it grows well in places where other garden flowers struggle. It produces numerous wind-borne seeds and will readily reseed in most gardens. Garden sites advise dead-heading for more flowers but especially to reduce seed production. 

a large row of red valerian (Wales)

The plant has a strong smell which discourages bringing cut flowers into the house (more than once). Apparently not all plants smell bad and i the odor may be mostly from the leaves and roots. 

The flowers attract bees, butterflies, flies, hummingbirds and other pollinators. The flowers reportedly can have a pleasant odor. 

Kids in Dorset, England used the hollow stems of red valerian as pea-shooters with ripe vetch seeds. 

I wondered, why not grow "real" valerian, fragrant valerian, the herb (Valeriana officinalis) instead? There are several reasons. Fragrant valerian is white, not these bright reds and red purples of red valerian. There is a white variety of red valerian, if you prefer white flowers. Secondly, red valerian is more bad-soil and drought tolerant than fragrant valerian, so in the west where I live, it grows better. Third, while red valerian is weedy, fragrant valerian is very weedy; the Missouri Botanic Garden writes "Midwest Noxious Weed: Do Not Plant. This plant is listed as a noxious weed in one or more Midwestern states outside Missouri and should not be moved or grown under conditions that would involve danger of dissemination." Oh, that's a good reason to grow red valerian instead. 

The plant sold as Centranthus coccineus is a variety of red valerian with particularly bright red flowers, Centranthus coccineus is not a valid scientific name, the name is Centranthus ruber var. coccineus, and now Valeriana rubra var. coccinea. 

red valerian

Medical references report uses for red valerian similar to valerian, but add that none of them have been supported by modern studies, although there has not been much testing. In tests over the last 50 years, fragrant valerian has been found to be effective for treating insomnia caused by nervousness, but other uses of it have not been supported. Fragrant valerian has a long list of counter-indications and of serious interactions with other medicines, so probably there are other treatments that are safer than fragrant valerian. 

Red valerian is a pretty European garden plant with too many names. 

Comments and corrections welcome.

References

Bartlett, J. 2019. Red Valerian, Centranthus ruber. Jeremy Bartlett's Let it Grow Blog. link This is as close as I can come to finding a source I found last week that says the white beard is the plants covered in white dandelion-like seeds. One ai source stated it, but the sources it gave did not. 

De Castro, O., B. Menale, C. Piazza, G. Bacchetta and E. Del Guacchio. 2025. Can we rescue Centranthus (Caprifoliaceae: Valerianoidea) from the Valeriana  sea? Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 209 (4): 345-378. online: link (Accessed 6/12/26)

Gruenwald, J., T. Brendler and C. Jaenicke, editors. 2007. PDR for Herbal Medicines. 4th edition. Thomson Healthcare Inc., Montvale, New Jersey. 

Missouri Plant Finder. Valeriana officinalis. Missouri Botanical Garden. link (Accessed 6/13/26)

National Institutes of Health. 2026. Valerian. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. link (Accessed 6/14/26)

Tucker, J. 2020. January: Jupiter's beard, Centranthus ruber. Santa Fe Botanical Garden. link

Vickery, R. 1995. Oxford Dictionary of Plant-Lore. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Wikipedia. Disambiguation: Jupiter's Beard. 

WFO. 2026. World Flora Online. Published on the Internet; link (Accessed 6/14/26).

I spent a lot of time checking facts here using search engines. Often the AI summary was garbage because it was quoting information about the 3 different Jupiter's beards as if it was the answer to my question. Be wary when the plant shares the name you are searching on with another plant. 

Kathy Keeler, 
A Wandering Botanist
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