NAT. ORDER. RANUNCULACE^. 59 



January, from which circumstance it is sometimes :;alled, Christ- 

 mas Flower. If any arguments were required to evince the neces- 

 sity of botanical accuracy in discriminating medical plants, the 

 Helleborus Niger would furnish us with many facts, from which such 

 aro;uments might be deduced. Many instances are recorded of 

 the fatal effects of this plant, by which it since appears, that other 

 plants were mistaken for it, and actually employed ; of these we 

 can enumerate the Helleborus viridis, Adonis vernalis, TroUius eiiro- 

 peeiis,Accea spicata, Aslranlia major, and Aco7iitujn napellus ; and as 

 the roots of these plants possess altogether different powers, we 

 cannot be surprised that the medical history of this root is not only 

 contused and contradictory, but calculated to produce very mis- 

 chievous and even fatal consequences. Mellampus is said to have 

 observed its pui-giiig quality in the goats which feed on it, and intro- 

 duced it into the Materia Medica, from whence it was styled Mal- 

 ampudinm. 



Ildlchorus odorus. Sweet-scented Hellebore. This species rises 

 about one foot high ; the leaves are radical, palmate, and pubescent 

 on their under surface ; segments oblong, undivided, quite entire at 

 the base, but serrated at the apex ; stem bifid ; sepals ovate-oblong, 

 acutish, green. It is very much like the IJcllehorus pw-jmrasams, and 

 IMlchorus viridis : differing from the first, in the flowers being green, 

 not purplish. Native of Hungary. Flowers in March. 



Hilkhorus viridk. Green Hellebore. This plant rises about a 

 foot and a half in height; the leaves are radical, very smooth, cauline 

 ones almost sessile, and palmate ; peduncles generally bifid ; sepals 

 roundish, ovate, green ; flowers green. Haller reckons up all the 

 reputed virtue of Hdhhore, under this species ; which indeed seems 

 to be what German practitioners have substituted for the true plant 

 of the ancients, Helleborus orientalis. 



We learn from the Flora Lomlinensis, that the roots of this plant 

 are used in Loudon for the true Black Hellebore ; and probably their 



