Helleborus 2014

[johnralphcarpenter]

Try Tom Mitchell at Evolution Plants.

 Edit by maggi :  Evolution Plants has closed down.

[Jeffnz]

Leena
Both croaticus and odorus are deciduous, the flower colour and possibly size will give the definitive answer, odorus will be green while croatocus often has red overlays.

[Jeffnz]

Can your friend who collected the seed recall where the seed was collected ,this mAay assist ID?

[Leena]

Thank you, I will have to be patient and wait for the flowers.
I had in my notes that the seeds were collected in mountains near Plitvice, but that is all I know.
The person who collected the seeds is not a close friend, I met her through plant exchange in Finland, and recently she has not been active in the gardening forum in Finland.

[Jeffnz]

Leena
Do not profess to be a species expert but the area the seed was collected from was Croatica so could be either species.

[Tim Murphy]

If the location data is accurate, it can't be H. croaticus, Leena. That species has an extremely limited distribution in NE Croatia (close to Slatina), a long way from Plitvice.

H. odorus doesn't grow around Plitvice either. The closest odorus I know of are just north of Zagreb, or much further east in Bosnia.

Plants from the torquatus/multifidus complex grow in the Plitvice area - are the plants still relatively young? Maybe the foliage will become more divided with age. Having said that, I have seen mature plants in colonies in that area which don't have divided foliage and would pass for examples of odorus.

'Plitvice area' is open to interpretation too, I suppose....

[Leena]

Thank you Tim. The plants are young and the bed where they are growing is perhaps too dry for Helleborus, it is under small cherries which roots suck up the moisture in the summer. I'll try to water them better this summer and hope that they will flower next year, I don't want to move them now when they are in full leaf. There are differences in the leaves of the two plants, the other has some more leaflets than the other.

[angie]

My last Hellebore flowering for me. I always think its sad to see the flowers go over.

Angie 

[johnralphcarpenter]

This Helleborus torquatus has been blooming non-stop for over  six months. Hope it's not on its way out!

[Lesley Cox]

Well it looks very healthy Ralph. Perhaps it enjoys apples?

[johnralphcarpenter]

Well it looks very healthy Ralph. Perhaps it enjoys apples?

When my wife said that we had had a windfall,  didn't realise that this was what she meant!

[johnralphcarpenter]

Hellebore season seems to have started with the first flower on Helleborus 'Walberton's Rosemary'.

[johnralphcarpenter]

In the garden today, two hellebores from Staudengärtnerei Peters in Germany are flowering. The first was bought from them as Helleborus x hybridus 'SP Emma', in the Spring Promise series. It looks more like Helleborus niger, and I see from their website that they now sell it as Helleborus x nigercors 'Emma'. Secondly, this one was bought as Helleborus x glandorfii Pink Large Flowered, but H. x glandorfii no longer appears on their website and I suspect that they have reclassified this as Helleborus x lemonnieri.

[johnralphcarpenter]

I see Long Acre Plants are offering H.'Emma' as Helleborus x ericsmithii. By the look of the plant this seems likely to me. H. x ericsmithii is H. niger x H. x sternii (H. lividus x H. argutifolius), so involving three species as parents. H. nigercors is H. niger x H. argutifolius. Peters seem to have reclassified all the plants they sold as H. glandorfii as H. lemonnieri. H. x glandorfii is H. niger x H. atrorubens; H. x lemonnieri is H. niger var. macranthus x H. orientalis subsp. abchasicus. So is the real H. x glandorfii out there somewhere?

[Maggi Young]

 From the Archibald Archive on the main SRGC Site :
'Raiser unknown: Eric Smith, a plantsman'  In this article, originally published by the Hardy Plant Society in 2000, Jim Archibald writes of some of the plants raised and named by Eric Smith and by himself. Jim's text is illustrated here with photos added of a selection of those plants. Kind thanks to SRGC Forumists and all who have allowed the use of their photographs.
http://files.srgc.net/archibald/writings/Raiser_unknown_Eric_Smith_a_plantsman_JCA.pdf

About Helleborus  x ericsmithii' : " Eric is commemorated in the name Helleborus x ericsmithii,
under which Brian Mathew described the hybrid H. niger x H. x sternii, which Eric was probably the
first to make. The cross was actually the result of a failure to produce H. x nigercors, a cross which Eric
never managed to repeat. Having failed with H. argutifolius as a pollen-parent, he tried its hybrid most
successfully."