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Helleborus orientalis
A low, evergreen perennial with leathery leaves and cup-shaped flowers in late winter and spring. It thrives in shade or part shade in humus-rich, well-drained soil and is grown in gardens, not as a houseplant.
Helleborus orientalis, or the Lenten rose, is a perennial flowering plant and species of hellebore in the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, native to Greece and Turkey.
The Lenten rose is suited to shaded or part-shaded positions, in soil rich in humus. Cultivated varieties have a wide array of colours. It is hardy in USDA hardiness zones 4–9 (down to −15 to −20 °C (5 to −4 °F)). German planters began breeding H. orientalis in the mid-19th century, enhanced by new material from the Caucasus via St Petersburg Botanic Garden. New varieties were soon introduced to the United Kingdom. Interest peaked in the late 19th century, but the genus had fallen out of favour by the 1920s. The Lenten rose was revived in horticulture in the 1960s by Helen Ballard, who bred many new varieties. Cultivated varieties can have white, green, pink to maroon and purple or spotted flowers.
Blue-grey hellebore · Stinking Hellebore · Majorcan Hellebore · Black Hellebore · Helleborus thibetanus · Green Hellebore · Hellebore
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Helleborus orientalis 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.
