488 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
{ December 26, 1878. 
the surface being mulched with short decayeddung. In winter 
they are covered with spare lights, a lean-to being formed by 
placing the lights just beneath the spouting of the house. The 
supply of flowers afforded by these plants is wonderful—the 
gardener says they are far more useful to him than any plants 
he grows occupying similar space. The improvised frame has 
sufficient heat from the house against which it is placed to ex- 
clude frost, flowers being produced from early December 
onwards. 
Helleborus niger.—The Christmas Rose is an appellation 
derived I think not so much from the flowers, which in mild 
seasons begin to expand towards the close of the year, as from 
the opening flower or buds resembling the bud of a Rose joined 
to the time of flowering. It is a native of the mountainous 
woods in many parts of Europe—Austria, Piedmont, Greece, 
the Pyrenees, and the Apennines, and is an old favourite, 
haying been introduced in 1596. The plant grows from 9 to 
12 inches high ; leaves rather large, smooth, pedate, and pro- 
Fig. 72.—HELLEBORTS NIGER. 
duced after the flowers. Flowers large, cup-shaped, white or 
lightly rosy, borne in scapes from the end of December to 
March. The flowers are the purest in colour at first opening, 
afterwards changing to pink, and becominggreen before fading. 
Helleborus niger maximus is the finest form of Christmas Rose, 
the flowers being large, nearly white when fully expanded, and 
very beautiful in bud. It is a magnified H. niger, flowering 
more freely, and neariy a month earlier. It should be in every 
garden. 
H. orientalis is plentifully found in the east, on mountains 
in most parts of the Levant, on the Bythinian Olympus, and 
about Constantinople, It is synonymous with H. officinalis and 
H. olympicus ruber, and is the Black Hellebore of the ancients 
The flower stems grow about 18 inches high, more when the 
plants are vigorous, with forked peduncles bearing large 
solitary flowers, with the sepals more or less pointed and per- 
manent, when young white, slightly stained with purple at the 
edge, changing to green when old. The radical leaves are om 
long stalks, pedate, regularly serrated on the margins; the 
floral are without footstalks, palmate, and finely toothed. It 
usually commences flowering with me in early December, but 
this year the plants have not yet flowered, attributable to 
division of the plants in spring, the wrong time for increase. 
The flowers are produced with the leaves, or rather fresh fohare 
