2 



N. Ord. RANTJNCULACEJE. 

 Tribe Hellebores. 



Genus Helleborus, Linn* B. & H., Gen. i, p. 7 ; Baill., Hist. 

 PL, i, p. 79. There are about 12 or 14 species, natives of 

 Europe and Western Asia. 



2. Helleborus niger, Linn., Sp. Plant., ed. i, p. 558 (1753). 

 Black Hellebore. Christmas Rose. 



Figures. Woodville, 1. 169 ; Hayne, i, tt. 7, 8 ; Stephenson & Churchill, 

 t. 11; Nees, t. 393, and Suppl., t. 48; Berg & Schmidt, t. 2 e and f ; 

 Bot. Mag., t. 8 ; Jacq., Fl. Austr., iii, t. 301 ; Reichenbach, Ic. Fl. 

 Germ., iv, tt. Ill, 112. 



Description. A perennial herb with a cylindrical, brownish- 

 black, knotted, brittle, fleshy, subterranean, bracteated, definite 

 rhizome, with its numerous branches much interlaced, and giving 

 off many stout, fibrous, straight, brown roots. Leaves from the 

 extremities of the rhizome-branches on long, cylindrical, tapering, 

 pale green, mottled with red petioles, pedate, the lateral divisions 

 deeply divided into 2 4 nearly separate lobes successively 

 smaller towards the petiole, coriaceous, nearly evergreen, smooth, 

 shining, dark-green above, paler and reticulated beneath, lobes 

 obovate-cuneate, acute or blunt, margin entire below, coarsely 

 serrate above. Flower- stalks terminating the rhizome, surrounded 

 at the base with a loose entire bract, shorter than the leaves, 

 cylindrical, smooth, tapering, mottled with pink below, 1- (rarely 

 2-) flowered, with 2 or 3 large, ovate, acute, concave bracts a little 

 below the flower. Sepals 5, equal, large, fleshy, roundish-oval, 

 persistent, white with a pink tinge, afterwards becoming greenish, 

 spreading horizontally. Petals 8 13 or more, small, shorter 

 than the stamens, green, tubular, with an oblique bilabiate orifice, 

 the claw filiform. Stamens numerous, hypogynous, inserted on 



* Helleborus, e XXe/Sopoe, the classical name. The celebrated plant of antiquity 

 is supposed to have been H. orientilis, Lain. 



