Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/669

Rh HELLEBORE (Greek, é\\cBopos ; Modern Greek also oxdpdy ; German, Vieswurz, Christwurz; French, ellébure, and, in the district of Avranche, herbe enragée), Helleborus, L., a genus of plants of the natural order Ranunculacee, natives of Europe, Western Asia, and North America. The leaves are palmate or pedate, are usually solitary, and have five persistent petaloid sepals, within the circle of which are placed the minute gland-like tubular petals, the nectaries of Linnzus, of the form of a horn with an irregular opening, and representing, according to Baillon (Vat. LHist. of Plunts, i 13, 1871), “the lower or outermost stamens trans- formed into staminodes.” The stamens are very numer- ous, and are spirally arranged ; and the carpels are variable in number, sessile or stipitate, and slightly united at the base, and dehisce by ventral suture (vol. iv. 141, 149).

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Helleborus niger. 1, Vertical section of flower; 2, nectary, side and front view (nat. size).

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Hellebores may ke grown in any ordinary light garden mould, but thrive best in a soil of about equal parts of turfy loam and well-rotted manure, with half a part each of fibrous peat and coarse sand, and in moist but thoroughly- drained situations, more especially where, as at the margins of shrubberies, the plants can receive partial shade in summer. For propagation, cuttings of the rhizome may be taken in August, and placed in pans of light soil, with a bottom heat of 60° to 70° Fahr.; hellebores can also be grown from seed, which must be sown as socn as ripe, since it quickly loses its vitality. The seedlings usually blossom in their third year. The exclusion of frost favours the pro- duction of flowers; but the plants, if forced, must be gradually inured to a warm atmosphere, and a free supply of air must be afforded, without which they are apt to become much affected by greenfly. The flowers on one plant of Hl. niger major in Mr B. Hooke’s garden at Brad- field, Berks, abont the end of January 1878, numbered nearly 500 (Gard. Chron., 1878, i. 145). For potting, 7/. niger and its varieties, and //. orientalis, atrorubens, and olympicus have been found well suited. After lifting, pre- ferably in September, the plants should receive plenty of light, with abundance of water, and once a week liquid manure, not over-strong. The flowers are improved in delicacy of hue, and are brought well up among the leaves, by preventing access of light except to the upper part of the plants. Of the numerous species of hellebore now grown, the deep-purple-flowered //. colchicus is one of the handsomest. HH. atropurpureus, introduced in 1844, blooms in March or at the end of February, and may be effectively used in flower borders to succeed hepaticas, scillas, and crocuses (Maund, Bot. Gurd., vi., pl. cexviii, fig. 2). Helle- bores having variously coloured spreading or bell-shaped flowers, spotted with crimson, red, or purple, were grown hy Sauer, late superintendent of the Berlin University Garden, about the year 1851, as the result of crossing //. guttatas, Braun, and If, purpurascens, Other fine varieties have been obtained by Bouché, his successor, from crosses with ZI. olympicus, and by Carl Heinemann from //. gut- tatus and H. abchasicus. The rhizome of //. niger occurs in commerce in irregular and nodular pieces, from about 1 to 3 inches in length, 