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Helleborus foetidus
Also called Dungwort, Setterwort, Bear's Foot
Stinking hellebore is an evergreen perennial with glossy, divided leaves and drooping yellowish-green bell-shaped flowers in late winter or spring. It grows best in dappled shade with well-drained, fertile, limey soil, and it self-seeds readily.
Helleborus foetidus, known variously as stinking hellebore , dungwort, setterwort and bear's foot, is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to the mountainous regions of Central and Southern Europe and Asia Minor. It is found wild in many parts of England, especially on limestone soil.
H. foetidus is grown in gardens for its handsome evergreen foliage and large numbers of green, bell-shaped flowers borne in late winter. It prefers woodland conditions with deep, fertile, moist, humus rich, well-drained soil, and dappled shade. The species is, however, drought-tolerant. It often occurs naturally on chalk or limestone soils.
This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Blue-grey hellebore · Majorcan Hellebore · Black Hellebore · Lenten-rose · Helleborus thibetanus · Green Hellebore · Hellebore
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Helleborus foetidus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
