JANUARY 13 



single root was touched by them. Of the cyclamen, 

 with all its charms as one of our best spring flowers, 

 I have now spoken satis superque. 



I must speak more shortly of the great flower of 

 December and January, the Christmas rose. This, 

 like the cyclamen, has both a botanical and literary 

 interest. It has now been certainly proved that our 

 Christmas rose is not the hellebore of the Greek and 

 Latin writers, which was supposed to cure madness; 

 they spoke of two sorts, the black and the white, and 

 the black was either the Hellebwus orientalis, which 

 comes from the mountains of Eastern Turkey, or Helle- 

 borus cydophyllus, which is found on Mount Helicon and 

 Mount Parnassus ; while the white hellebore, which was 

 far the strongest medicine, is certainly the Veratrum 

 album, which grows in great abundance on Mount (Eta. 

 Our Christmas rose, Helleborus niger, comes from the 

 Carpathian Mountains, where it is so abundant that it 

 is said to grow in millions, and where during the three 

 months of August, September, and October, the Aus- 

 trian and Hungarian peasants dig them up by the 

 thousand, when they ' yield a golden harvest to certain 

 Austrian Jews who call themselves plant-collectors.' 

 This is comparatively a modern trade, arising from 

 the popularity of the flower during the last thirty 

 years. Before that few gardens had more than two 



