Helleborus niger, commonly called Christmas rose or black hellebore, is an evergreen perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae.

niger is generally found in mountainous areas in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and northern Italy.

[3] Helleborus niger is an evergreen plant with dark leathery pedate leaves carried on stems 9–12 in (23–30 cm) tall.

The large flat flowers, borne on short stems from midwinter to early spring, are generally white, but occasionally with a pink tinge.

It originated with a self-sown seedling given by Major G. H. Tristram of Dallington, Sussex, to Hilda Davenport-Jones who had a nursery at nearby Washfield, Kent.

[3] Nurserymen have tried for many years to cross H. niger with oriental hellebores (Lenten roses) H. × hybridus to increase the colour range available.

Raised in 2000 by plant breeder David Tristram (whose father gave the first 'Potter's Wheel' to Washfield Nursery), Helleborus 'Walberton's Rosemary' is pink-flowered, extremely floriferous, and seems to be intermediate between its parents in many other characteristics.

[3] Helleborus niger contains protoanemonin,[8] or ranunculin,[9] which has an acrid taste and can cause burning of the eyes, mouth and throat, oral ulceration, gastroenteritis and hematemesis.

[10] 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.

[14] It 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.

[12] Research in the 1970s, however, showed that the roots of H. niger do not contain the cardiotoxic compounds helleborin, hellebrin, and helleborein that are responsible for the lethal reputation of black hellebore.

Black hellebore was the dominant purgative of antiquity, frequently prescribed for that purpose by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, in the fifth century B.C.