58 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
nature they recover, some have lost their hair, and the nails from their fingers and toes, 
and the scarf skin of the whole body has peeled off from head to foot thereby.” The Green 
Hellebore grows in shady places, in groves, under trees, and children have been tempted 
to put it in their mouths. At first the taste is warm and pungent, it then produces a 
eold numbness, and the symptoms of many other vegetable poisons, so well described by 
Shakespeare in “ Romeo and Juliet,” where the Friar tells Juliet what to expect when 
she swallows the contents of his phial :— 
“through all thy veins shall run 
A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize 
Each vital spirit ; for no pulse shall keep 
His natural progress, but surcease to beat : 
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest ; 
The roses in thy lips and cheek shall fade 
To paly ashes ; thy eyes’ windows fall, 
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life.” 
Both this species and the following have been often used medicinally, instead of 
the true ancient or Greek H. officinalis of Sibthorp and the H. niger. 
SPECIES II—-HELLEBORUS FQTIDUS. Linn. 
Pratt XLY.* 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. IIL. an. Tab. CIIT. Fig. 4715. 
Stem many-flowered. Lower leaves pedate. Uppermost bracts 
entire. Sepals erect, concave. Petals shorter than the stamens. 
Follicles on a short common stalk. 
In woods and thickets. Rare, but recorded from most of the 
English counties, in many of which, however, it is certainly not 
indigenous. Dr. Bromfield considers it truly wild in the chalky 
beech woods of Hampshire. 
England. Perennial. Early Spring. 
Rootstock oblique, black, woody. Stem smooth, 1 to 2 feet high, 
leafy, the lower part marked by the scars where leaves have fallen 
off, much branched in the upper portion. No radical leaves ; those 
on the unbranched part of the stem evergreen, truly pedate, on 
stalks expanded at the base. Segments very narrowly elliptical, 
acute, serrated. Leaves at the base of the branches oblong, sheath- 
like, with a few linear lobes at the apex. Flowers in small cymes, 
which are combined so as to form a somewhat flat-topped or sub- 
corymbose panicle. Bracts pale yellowish green, ovate-lanceolate, 
* This plate has been re-drawn from FE. B. 613, with some corrections and the 
addition of a radical leaf, by Mr. J. E. Sowerby. 
