Nothing says happy Monday, especially the Monday after a holiday, like a stinking hellebore!
Stinking Hellebore! Stinking Hellebore!
It sounds like an erudite insult, something stolen from a history of ancient Greece.
Or perhaps it’s an apt insult for someone who only reads history tomes on ancient Greece, and talks of nothing else.
Anyway, the name “stinking hellebore” or Helleborus foetidus, belongs to a flower that typically blossoms in late winter or early spring. I saw them blooming in Historic London Towne, in Annapolis, Maryland. This site has excellent gardens and an archaeological site uncovering the early history of European settlers in what’s now Maryland.
While some argue that the Stinking hellebore does indeed stink, I didn’t find that to be the case. Or maybe I was just downwind. I was struck by the pods that are in the center of some of the flowers, and tried to capture their oddity here.
The words I used are a Japanese idiom, meaning “Imagination is better than reality.” The words, 見ぬが花 (minu ga hana), literally mean “Not seeing is a flower.”
etegamist 