Best Teas for Sleep

Valerian's name comes from the Roman family name Valerius, whose root is valere, to be strong. Bruise the leaves or the root and cats arrive. Mrs Grieve wrote in 1931 that they roll on the unfortunate plant, so that it is scarcely possible to keep one in a garden, and a 2017 study of a hundred house cats found forty-seven of them responded to the root. Legend has it the Pied Piper carried some, and that this was why the rats followed him.

Hawthorn has the longer folklore. The thorn at Glastonbury flowers twice a year, spring and winter, and is said to have grown from Joseph of Arimathea's staff. The custom of sending a budded branch to the monarch at Christmas began in 1929, when the vicar sent one to Queen Mary and George V. Vandals sawed the branches off the tree on Wearyall Hill overnight on 8 December 2010; the sprig is cut from a cutting at St John's now.

St John's wort crossed to California and became Klamath weed, two million acres of it across the rangeland. From 1946 leaf beetles were released against it, and by 1957 less than one per cent was left. In 1958 Humboldt County raised a bronze plaque to the beetle. Passionflower, where the Passion story never reached, was read as a clock face instead, tokeisō in Japan.

Valerian Root, Organic is the root on its own and Passionflower, Organic the vine. Goodnight Moon, Organic is three things only, chamomile, lavender and cinnamon. Sweet Dreams, Organic has the root in it with chamomile, passionflower and lavender. Ayurvedic Slumber carries the hawthorn and the St John's wort with apple, orange peel and blueberry leaves, and Ayurvedic Om Sweet Om is hawthorn again with cinnamon, ginger and malva flowers.