Here is another member of the early-winter flowering Helleborus x lemperi hybrids, Helleborus ‘Leona’. I’d say, she’s looking quite ravishing in the garden for mid-January. All Helleborus x lemperi are sterile hybrids and created by crossing Hellborus niger with Helleborus x hybridus.
tres belle floraison!
very useful phenology…
but why sterile?
they have stamens and apparently pollen?
merci
With many wide crosses, sterility is the result. This often comes from different parental chromosome #s and sometimes ploidy levels. For example, a diploid will often cross with a tetraploid, but the triploid offspring is almost always sterile. A great example with animals is the Mule, which is a hybrid between a horse (64 chromosomes) and donkey (62 chromosomes). The hybrid gets 1/2 the number of chromosomes from each parent; 32, and 31, for a total of 63. Because of this uneven number, when the cells divide (Meiosis), it’s not possble for the chromosomes to pair equally, resulting in either an unfunctional male or female part.