In article , p00kie
writes
Stinking Hellebore by the looks ... see he
http://flood.nhm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fff/g...loraNo%5D=1670
0

That was my first thought, from leaf shape, flower shape and colour. But
stinking hellebore (H. foetidus) has a purple edge to the inside of the
'flowers'

see
http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/images...s_foetidus.jpg

and I couldn't see that on the pic, so I wondered H viridis? - but I'm
not familiar with that.

H viridis also looks cruder in leaf shape, from, eg

http://www.floralimages.co.uk/pyrenees1.htm

so I'm just not sure. Some of the other H foetidus pics on the web don't
show the purple edge, eg

http://www.turning-earth.co.uk/shade.htm

but then web identifications aren't always reliable ;-)
The nhm url that pookie gives should be reliable, and that shows the
purple edge if you look closely, but very much less obviously than the
url I gave.

Stace, which is the standard flora from UK flowers, doesn't mention the
purple edge as diagnostic, so perhaps it is variable. He also refers to
the flowers as flowers not bracts so I was wrong there! - but they're
not delicate petals as we know them, they last right through to seed
formation.

Stinking hellebore gets its name from the smell of the foliage when
crushed, so that's one thing to try - admittedly I've never done that
with mine so I can't tell you what it smells of!


--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"