FLOWER FRIDAY - HELLEBORE

On a cold and frosty Friday morning, I decided to go out and take some shots of one of our new Hellebores and this one caught my eye because it has just started flowering.

Its name is “Ice ’n’ Roses Red” although it’s not completely red - in fact, the shades range from pink, which I guess is the icy part through to dark red and it was quite beautiful in the frost.  

I wanted to find out more about the various parts of the Hellebore so of course, asked Mr. Google, who was very helpful today.  I found out that the petals are actually called sepals, which protect the flower.  The middle dark red part is the carpel, the Hellebore’s female reproductive organs, with pistils coming from it with the white parts on the top known as stigma and on this shot, they actually looked frozen.  

The stamens are long white filaments with antlers and are the male reproductive organs and you can see from this shot that many are full of pollen - just waiting for any pollinators to fly by and stop, and apparently, there can be up to 150 stamens in one Hellebore flower. 

In the course of evolution, the Hellebore petals developed into nectaries, which are short tubular flower organs and these are the light green parts surrounding the pistils, often known as “honey leaves”.  These produce nectar and attract the few pollinators that are active when Hellebores flower;  I have seen a few wild bees around recently, even at this time of the year, when it can be quite warm in the sunshine. 

Although I put a coat and my fingerless gloves on - I don’t dare go out without one if Mr. HCB is around -  it was quite warm in the garden, because the wind has dropped after a very windy start to the week.  I noticed that in the half hour I was wandering around, the tiny Violas that had been completely bowed over when I first went out, had now lifted their heads and were nodding at me!

February is such a lovely time in the garden and in a few more days, more of our snowdrops will be out - these are especially precious to us as they belonged to Mr. HCB’s mother, Joan, and have done us proud for the last 25 years since she died, but more of those on another day.

Mr. HCB is out pottering in the garden, and I’m sure, like me, he will say that this quote is quite true:

“Spring is the time of the year 
     when it is summer in the sun 
          and winter in the shade.”
Charles Dickens