White

The freckles make me actually unsure if the ID is right. Renate collects all sorts of hellebores and I know they are not all the same, but to the white one outside her livingrom window she refers to as Christrose. Interesting is, the blossoms are not all white inside as a Christrose should . Of course she has several fancy Hellebores, not really far away as the bee flies, in bloom at the same time and then that really huge H. viridis in the frontyard...

Meanwhile I saw a website of a specialized breeder. They call those with the little ruby spots insite all H. orientalis x guttatus as there is the dominant gene for speckle making in some H. orientalis subspecies you must use to cross mandatory to get genes in for a speckled look. H. orientalis (Lenten Rose) is closely related to H. niger but it is blooming around easter and never already in february, in so far there are also different names for the manmade hybrids. The H. niger x hybridus tends not only to bloom extremely early but it is always pure white, wiith extra smal and multiple or extra huge singular blossom inflorescences and leaf colours that tend to different shades and hues of green or brownish according to what the pure F1 calls for, whereas the named H. orientalis x hybridus is always blooming later and encompasses a variety of pedigree plants with spotless blossoms in pinks, greens and pale yellows, some very greenish as reminescent in the blossoms to H.viridis but never as tall a shrub or still in bloon by late june. Those all might get however spotted offspring when a private person just allows different bought plants to pollinate as there can be recessive guttatus genes in any.
Seems a truly huge mess, but it makes sense, as long you collect store hybrides and not got a selfpropagating population.
Anyway the breeder site is in german and I showed it to Renate, so she also sorts them now in like this. She says she never got any free Heleborus that just grew somewhere, they all where once bought for money and just live as perenials without getting more, alas.