hellebore: the flower I love but never plant because it's best as a surprise

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The plant that may have been used to poison and kill Alexander the Great before he reached age 33 is a joy to me in early spring since I don't eat it. When daffodils, God bless 'em, are everywhere and looking monotonously prolific, if I see these growing in someone's garden I get excited and bend down close to the ground or sit and get that wet spring bum you see on stupid photographers who forget how much it rained a couple days ago.

Oh it was a long week at the university. I always think universities would be such nice places to work if it weren't for the students.

Just kidding! I love 'em! (The way I love daffodils. Beautiful, sort of different if you look closely, but who planted so dad-blamed many?)

But yes, it was a very tiring week, so after work Friday, seeing as Don had an engagement at school until late, I drove from the office to the horticultural gardens to see if anything had sprouted. It was sunny and warm for the first time this spring.

There was a couple talking intently on the rocks by the lily pad pond. Over in the children's garden a young pop was watching his pink toddler entertained by climbing the little stadium seats with a pacifier in her mouth. Then there was me wandering aimlessly, bored with daffodils, which were everywhere and seemingly the only thing blooming. I could see clippings and weeds lying around not yet tidied up from the slave labor of horticulture students.

But no! Wait! What's this? The grey-chartreuse leaves of one drooping hellebore, next to the grey-maroon of another. Ahh, jackpot. I was down on me bum in a flash, know why? These flowers are a bit melancholy if you take them at non-face value. I mean you can't see their faces if you look down at them. They hang their heads - I should have taken a picture from above to show you. You have to get underneath them to see the sun inside.

Kinda like the twenty-first student who walked through my door Wednesday afternoon. I lifted my face, and she lifted hers, and there it was - the sun!

helleborus orientalis, or lenten rose