Helleborus orientalis 'Harvington Double Purple' - 2009

Stunning Photo Andrewr :)

Oh Andrew...........Thats beautiful.........

Fantastic.

Thanks,Andrew - you know I like this one! I thought I'd planted one...but I think it was just a baby,so I shall have to be patient. I'll look at yours instead! :-) :-)

STUNNING! - do you by any chance have any seeds you want to swap? :-)

Only specie plants come true from seed and this is a selected variety. Also, hellebores are very promiscuous so any seed I did save from it would, like as not, be something completely different in any case

ok thanks anyway Andrew, I have herd this said before, - this may be a really silly question but how do you know if a plant is a 'specie plant' i know that you do get cross contamination from bees etc, producing x breed. but not knowing plants as well as yourself Andrew, is there a way of telling if something is 'specie' without knowing the plant anyway? - sorry if i sound a bit blond here lol - obviously you know i'm not (blond that is)

I guess the easiest way of telling is from the name. For example, helleborus argutifolius is a species and if there are no other hellebores nearby, all the seedlings come true. All the orientalis ones are named varieties that have been bred and selected so will not come true from seed. And H.x ericsmithii is a hybrid between two species (that's what the 'x' in the name signifies) so any seed from that might produce something similar to itself or either parent.
Does that make it any clearer?