Winter Flowers

Botanical print of a pair of winter-blooming flowers – hellebore and aconite. The particular variety of hellebore is Helleborus foetidus – it is ironically known as stinking hellebore despite not being particularly malodorous. It is the plant with green flowers.

The yellow flowers are Winter aconite (Eranthis) which also bloom in winter – in fact, the colder the better the plant likes it.

I really like the juxtaposition of these two flowers on the same print. Both are cup-like flowers and their coloring makes them work well together in a single image. This botanical print was hand-watercolored over 150 years ago.

This flower drawing was included in Lessons From the Vegetable World which was published in 1858.

Winter Flowers

This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.