Black Hellebore

Hellebore, Black
(Helleborus niger) Poison

   This plant is also known as the Christmas Rose, snow rose, or winter rose. This is a traditional cottage garden plant that blooms from late autumn to early spring. This winter-blooming plant often blossoms in the snow. This baneful herb grows up to nfifteen inches tall and is part of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). It has evergreen compound leaves of seven or more leaflets, and it bears white flowers that age to pink. There are large-flowered cultivars available, as are pink-flowered and double-flowered varieties. Hellebore has become a popular spring perennial these days.
   For practical magick use, Ellen Dugan grows this plant in her garden and enjoys the pretty flowers in late winter. Magickally, hellebore was thought to cure madness. Interestingly enough, in the language of flowers, it signifies a scandal.  It is a feminine plant, sacred to Hecate and ruled by the planet Saturn. Its elemental association is water.
Warning: This plant is an abortifacient; it is toxic and should not be ingested.

From Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magickal Herbs ---

Hellebore, Black
(Helleborus niger) Poison

Folk Names: Melampode, Christmas nRose, Winter Rose
Gender: Feminine
Planet: Saturn
Element: Water
Magical Uses: Scatter powdered hellebore before as you move and you shall be invisible. Hellebore was also used in exorcism rituals, and was at one time used in inducing astral projection. As with most poisonious herbs it is simply too dangerous to use.

Poisonous constituents

In the early days of medicine, two kinds of hellebore were recognized: black hellebore, which included various species of Helleborus, and white hellebore, now known as Veratrum album ("false hellebore"), which belongs to a different plant family, the Melanthiaceae . Although the former plant is highly toxic, containing veratrine and the teratogens cyclopamine and jervine, it is believed to be the "hellebore" used by Hippocrates as a purgative. California corn lily is similar in appearance to V. album and has sometimes been mistaken for it.

"Black hellebore" was used by the ancients in paralysis, gout and other diseases, more particularly in insanity. "Black hellebore" is also toxic, causing tinnitus, vertigo, stupor, thirst, a feeling of suffocation, swelling of the tongue and throat, emesis and catharsis, bradycardia (slowing of the pulse), and finally collapse and death from cardiac arrest. Although Helleborus niger (black hellebore or Christmas rose) contains protoanemonin, or ranunculin,  which has an acrid taste and can cause burning of the eyes, mouth and throat, oral ulceration, gastroenteritis and hematemesis, research in the 1970s showed that its roots do not contain the cardiotoxic compounds helleborin, hellebrin, and helleborein responsible for the lethal reputation of "black hellebore". It seems that earlier studies may have used a commercial preparation containing a mixture of material from other species such as H. viridis, green hellebore.

 Folklore and historical usage

Several legends surround the hellebore; in witchcraft it is believed to have ties to summoning demons. Helleborus niger is commonly called the Christmas rose, due to an old legend that it sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give the Christ child in Bethlehem.

In Greek mythology, Melampus of Pylos used hellebore to save the daughters of the king of Argos from a madness, induced by Dionysus, that caused them to run naked through the city, crying, weeping, and screaming.

During the Siege of Kirrha in 585 BC, hellebore was reportedly used by the Greek besiegers to poison the city's water supply. The defenders were subsequently so weakened by diarrhea that they were unable to defend the city from assault.

Some historians believe that Alexander the Great died because of a hellebore overdose, when he took it as medication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellebore

The Black Hellebore - once known as Melampode - is a perennial, low-growing plant, with dark, shining, smooth leaves and flower-stalks rising directly from the root, its pure white blossoms appearing in the depth of winter and thereby earning for it the favourite name of Christmas Rose.


The generic name of this plant is derived from the Greek elein (to injure) and bora (food), and indicates its poisonous nature. The specific name refers to the darkcoloured rootstock.



The Black Hellebore used by the Greeks has been identified by Dr. Sibthorp as Helleborus officinalis, a handsome plant, with a branching stem, bearing numerous serrated bracts, and three to five whitish flowers. It is a native of Greece, Asia Minor, etc.

The two species found wild in many parts of England, especially on a limestone soil, are H. Foetidus, the Bearsfoot, and H. Viridis, the Green Hellebore; the latter has injurious effects on cattle if eaten by them. And yet at http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/helbla14.html  this is written:

"Once, people blessed their cattle with this plant to keep them from evil spells, and for this purpose, it was dug up with certain mystic rites. In an old French romance, the sorcerer, to make himself invisible when passing through the enemy's camp, scatters powdered Hellebore in the air, as he goes.


The following is from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy:

'Borage and hellebore fill two scenes,
Sovereign plants to purge the veins
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart
Of those black fumes which make it smart.' "
Both these British species possess powerful medicinal effects and are at times substituted for the true H. niger.

Cultivation---All kinds of Hellebore will thrive in ordinary garden soil, but for some kinds prepared soil is preferable, consisting of equal parts of good fibry loam and welldecomposed manure, half fibry peat and half coarse sand. Thorough drainage is necessary, as stagnant moisture is very injurious. It prefers a moist, sheltered situation, with partial shade, such as the margins of shrubberies. If the soil is well trenched and manured, Hellebore will not require replanting for at least seven years, if grown for flowering, but a top dressing of well-decayed manure and a little liquid manure might be given during the growing season, when plants are making their foliage. Propagation is by seeds, or division of roots. Seedlings should be pricked off thickly into a shady border, in a light, rich soil. The second year they should be transplanted to permanent quarters, and will bloom in the third year. For division of roots, the plant is strongest in July, and the clumps to be divided must be well established, with rootstocks large enough to cut. The plants will be good flowering plants in two years, but four years are required to bring them to perfection.


---Part Used---The rhizome, collected in autumn and dried.

The root has a slight odour, when cut or broken, somewhat resembling Senega root. The dry powder causes violent sneezing. It has a somewhat bitter-sweet and acrid taste.

---Constituents---Two crystalline glucosides, Helleborin and helleborcin, both powerful poisons. Helleborin has a burning, acrid taste and is narcotic, helleborcin has a sweetish taste and is a highly active cardiac poison, similar in its effects to digitalis and a drastic purgative. Other constituents are resin, fat and starch. No tannin is present.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---The drug possesses drastic purgative, emmenagogue and anthelmintic properties, but is violently narcotic. It was formerly much used in dropsy and amenorrhoea, and has proved of value in nervous disorders and hysteria. It is used in the form of a tincture, and must be administered with great care.

Applied locally, the fresh root is violently irritant.

Varities of Hellebore blossoms