Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/669

HELLEBORE (Greek, é\\cBopos ; Modern Greek also oxdpdy ; German, Vieswurz, Christwurz; French, ellébure, and, in the district of Avranche, herbe enragée), Helleborus, L., a genus of plants of the natural order Ranunculacee,^[1] natives of Europe, Western Asia, and North America. The leaves^[2] are palmate or pedate (Botany, vol. iv. p. 111., fig. 108), are usually solitary, and have five persistent petaloid sepals, within the circle of which are placed the minute gland-like tubular petals, the nectaries of Linnzus, of the form of a horn with an irregular opening, and representing, according to Baillon (Vat. LHist. of Plunts, i 13, 1871), “the lower or outermost stamens trans- formed into staminodes.”^[3] The stamens are very numer- ous, and are spirally arranged ; and the carpels are variable in number, sessile or stipitate, and slightly united at the base, and dehisce by ventral suture (vol. iv. 141, 149).

Helleborus nigcr, L., Black Helebore, or, as from blooming in mid-winter it is termed, the Christmas Rose (Ger., Schwarze Nies- wurz ; Fr., Rose de Noél), is found in southern and central Europe, and with other species was cultivated in the time of Gerard (see Herball, p. 977, ed. Johnson, 1633) in English gardens. Its knotty bracteated rhizome is blackish-brown externally, and, as with other species, gives origin to numerous straight roots. The leaves are radical, coriaceous, smooth, distinctly pedate, dark green above, and lighter below, with 7 to 9 segments, and long petioles. The scapes, which end the branches of the rhizome, have a loose entire bract at the base, and terminate in a single flower, with two bracts, from the axis of one of which a second flower may be developed. The flowers have 5 white or pale-rose, eventually greenish sepals, 15 to 18 lines in breadth ; & to 13 tubular green petals containing a sweet liquid secretion ; and 5 to 10 free carpels.

Helleborus niger. 1, Vertical section of flower; 2, nectary, side and front view (nat. size).

Varieties of Black Hellebore are H. niger minor, or H. angusti- folius, and Giant Hellebore, distinguished as H. niger major, maximus, giganteus, and grandifiorus, or as a distinct species, H. altifolius, H. fotidus, 1.., Stinking Hellebore, in Westmoreland Felon-grass, known also, from the shape of its leaves, as Bear’s-foot (Fr., Pied de Griffon), is a native of England, where, like Z. viridis, it is confined chiefly to limestone districts ; it is common in France and the south of Europe. Its leaves have 7- to 11-toothed divisions, and the flowers are in panicles, numerous, cup-shaped, and droop- ing, with many braets, and green sepals tinged with purple, alternating with the five petals.

H. viridis, L., or Green Hellebore proper, ranges from England, where it ig probably indigenous in some of the southern and eastern countics, to Spain and Italy, and even it is said to Turkey. It has bright yellowish-green flowers, 2 to 4 on a stem, with large leaf-like bracts. Brunfels and Bock (16th ceutury) regarded the plant as the Black Hellebore of the Greeks.

The radical leaves of H. viridis and its varieties, as also of H. multifidus, Visian, H. purpurascens. W. & K., H. cyclophyllus, Boiss., and several allied forms, wither in winter. In Z/. vesicarius, Auch. (Boissier, F7. Orient., i. 60), a native of Syria, the flower-stem bears 4 to 5 flowers, and the carpels are much compressed laterally, and, when ripe, united half way up, as in eertain Nigelle. H. lividus, Soland UZ. argutifolius, Viv., trifolius, Mill., and iMczfolius and triphyllus), Holly-leaved Hellebore, found in the Balearic Islands, and in Corsica and Sardinia, is remarkable for the handsomeness of its foliage. H. antiquorum, Braun, which has purplish-white flowers, oceurs in Bithynian Olympus. H. olympicus, Lindl., is perhaps a variety of it. H. cyclophyllus (Boiss., FU. Orient., i. 61), a Grecian species, has ovate-orbicular green sepals. H. orientalis, Lam., Ency., iil. 92 (H. ponticus, Braun, see Boiss., op. cit.), indigenous to Macdonia, Thrace, the vicinity of Constantinople, and northern asia Minor as far east as Trebizond, has lcaves pubescent below, and of 7 to 9 seements, and scapes bearing 3 to 5 flowers, with white or rosy sepals. Allied to it are H. odorus, W. & K., of which Koch regards H. atrorubcns as a variety, and H. caucasicus, Koch,^[4] having green and purplish-green sepals respectively.

Hellebores may ke grown in any ordinary light garden mould, but thrive best in a soil of about equal parts of turfy loam and well-rotted manure, with half a part each of fibrous peat and coarse sand, and in moist but thoroughly- drained situations, more especially where, as at the margins of shrubberies, the plants can receive partial shade in summer. For propagation, cuttings of the rhizome may be taken in August, and placed in pans of light soil, with a bottom heat of 60° to 70° Fahr.; hellebores can also be grown from seed, which must be sown as socn as ripe, since it quickly loses its vitality. The seedlings usually blossom in their third year. The exclusion of frost favours the pro- duction of flowers; but the plants, if forced, must be gradually inured to a warm atmosphere, and a free supply of air must be afforded, without which they are apt to become much affected by greenfly. The flowers on one plant of Hl. niger major in Mr B. Hooke’s garden at Brad- field, Berks, abont the end of January 1878, numbered nearly 500 (Gard. Chron., 1878, i. 145). For potting, 7/. niger and its varieties, and //. orientalis, atrorubens, and olympicus have been found well suited. After lifting, pre- ferably in September, the plants should receive plenty of light, with abundance of water, and once a week liquid manure, not over-strong. The flowers are improved in delicacy of hue, and are brought well up among the leaves, by preventing access of light except to the upper part of the plants. Of the numerous species of hellebore now grown, the deep-purple-flowered //. colchicus is one of the handsomest. HH. atropurpureus, introduced in 1844, blooms in March or at the end of February, and may be effectively used in flower borders to succeed hepaticas, scillas, and crocuses (Maund, Bot. Gurd., vi., pl. cexviii, fig. 2). Helle- bores having variously coloured spreading or bell-shaped flowers, spotted with crimson, red, or purple, were grown hy Sauer, late superintendent of the Berlin University Garden, about the year 1851, as the result of crossing //. guttatas, Braun, and If, purpurascens, Other fine varieties have been obtained by Bouché, his successor, from crosses with ZI. olympicus, and by Carl Heinemann from //. gut- tatus and H. abchasicus.

The rhizome of //. niger occurs in commerce in irregular and nodular pieces, from about 1 to 3 inches in length,

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1. On the plants known as White Hellebore (Veretrum album) and American -White Hellebore, commonly called ‘‘Green Hellebore” (V. viride), which are members of the natural order Melanthacee, see Veratrum.
2. On the development and structural relations of the leaves, see A. Trecul, nn. Sci. Nat., Bot., ser. iil., tom. xx. 260, 268, pl. 23, figs. 101-3, 1853 ; and Clos, Bull. Soc. But. de Franee, iii. 682, 1856.
3. On the petals of the hellebores, see J. B. Payer, Traité d Organo- genie comparée de la Fleur, pp. 256-260, 1857. In the opinion of Baillon (op. cié., pp. 15-21), the groups Eranthis and Coptis, from the structure of their flowers, as also strictly Isopyrum and Trotlius, should aot be generical'y separated from Ielleborus.
4. According to Regel, H. orientalis, caucasicus, colchicus, anti- quorum, olympicus, guttatus, and abchasicus should all be reduced to one species. Koch (Gard. Chron., 1874, i. 118) regards the Hungarian H. purpurascens, W. & K., and the Caucasian Jf. colchicus, Reg. (=f. porphyromelas, Braun), as varieties of the last-named. The “TT, abschasicus”’ of Belgian florists is stated by M. J. L. Le Béle (‘‘ Monog. des Helléb.,” La Belgique Horticole, vii. 331) to be merely « variety of 4. intermedius, Guss.