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SETTERWORT
Helleborus foetidus
Family RANUNCULACEAE
Ramblers in the chalk districts of Southern and Eastern England may come across this eurious, rather uncommon, plant.
It is a coarse-growing perennial, its large radical leaves divided into five or six narrow leaflets, those that occur on the upper part of the flowering stem are more or less reduced to the condition of divided bracts.
The flowers are rather puzzling at first sight, for the large purple-bordered sepais qui te hide the small tubular petais, whieh are shorter than the many stamens. The petais are indeed turned into drinking eups, for they are filled with nectar for the deleetation of insect visitors.
The flowers are globular until after fertilization, when the stamens and petals drop off and the sepais spread. The flowers are numerous, borne in a loose panicle, and their odour is fetid. The plant is highly poisonous.
Flowering from February to April.
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A spiny shrub, growing in hedge and copse, brightening the spot with its strings of yellow flowers, and later in the year with its oblong red berries. Its shoots attain helleborus foetidus a height of from six to ten feet. The leaves are egg-shaped, narrowest near the short stalk, with spine-like teeth. The yellow flowers include eight or nine sepals helleborus foetidus and six petals. The petals are in two series, and at the base of each are two nectar glands.
They are pink in colour; the petal, known as the standard helleborus foetidus, is very large in this species, and streaked with a red of a deeper shade. The flower does not secrete nectar, and the insect visitors only obtain pollen for their foetidus helleborus trouble. The seed-pod is very small, containing two or three seeds. The flowering period is from June to September. In field corners, bushy hedgerows, and roadside wastes the rambler helleborus foetidus may come across one of the Melilots.
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