A week or so ago I posted an image of an unopened HELLEBORUS titled 'The Aristocrat' It looked like a deep burgundy-blue dangling egg and lots of reviewers commented they hoped to see it when it opened. I tried for days to get a good image of it but it is a completely downward facing blossom and my best images of it include my hand holding it up to take the shot. I am saving those images for the day when I am able to remove my hand from the image w/o making a mess of the lovely blossom itself.

It has two mates in it's little HELLEBORE Bed....a lime green variety (also downward facing) and the burgundy one seen here. Called 'Blue Lady'- which I have never understood as it is a deep rich burgundy color- it is not as rigidly downward facing as the other two varieties and I can pull the blossom up somewhat and prop it on it's serrated green foliage in order to photograph it.

Taken several days ago at dusk I found that I could not photograph a single blossom (it grows 2 or 3 per stem- each blossom about 3" wide) unless I removed it from the plant. As I wasn't willing to do that I concentrated on the main blossom you see here but allowed portions of the other two to remain in the image as well. I decided that it gave a more natural look to the way the 'Blue Lady' actually looks in my gardens.