Helleborus ‘Candy Love’ Has Greenish White Flowers With Reddish Edges

Summary: Belgian hellebore breeder Thierry van Paemel patents Helleborus ‘Candy Love’ as a new variety that has greenish white flowers with reddish edges.

closeup of flowers and foliage of Helleborus plant named 'Candy Love,' Brighton, East Sussex, South East England: The Greenery Nursery and Garden Shop (The Greenery Nursery), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Helleborus ‘Candy Love,’ cultivated by Belgian helleborist Thierry van Paemel, has greenish white flowers with reddish edges and dark green leaves.

On Oct. 29, 2007, Thierry van Paemel filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for his invention, a distinctive, new cultivar, Helleborus ‘Candy Love.’ He named Compass Plants B.V. of Hillegom, South Holland province, western Netherlands, as assignee.

Kent L. Bell, primary examiner, reviewed the application for Helleborus ‘Candy Love.’ On Nov. 4, 2008, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office assigned plant patent number 19,413 to van Paemel’s Helleborus ‘Candy Love.’

‘Candy Love’ hellebore is a cultivated variety of the Helleborus x nigercors hybrid. Helleborus x nigercors results from crossing Helleborus niger, known commonly as black hellebore or Christmas rose, and Helleborus lividus, known commonly as Corsican hellebore.

Plants described in the patent application were grown during winter in containers outdoors at van Paemel’s nursery, Kwekerij Het Wilgenbroek BVBA, in Oostkamp, West Flanders province, northwestern Belgium. Day temperatures during production spanned about 4 degrees to about 15 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees to 59 degrees Fahrenheit). The night temperature range was from about minus 1 degree to about 8 degrees Celsius (30.2 degrees to 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Helleborus ‘Candy Love’ presents an upright, flattened globular, mounded shape. ‘Candy Love’ measures a height of about 23.8 centimeters (9.37 inches), with an area of spread of about 52 centimeters (20.47 inches).

Leaves emerge at the plant’s base as basal rosettes. Each circular arrangement usually numbers about nine leaves.

The newly cultivated variety’s palmately compound leaves consist of five serrated leaflets that radiate from a common point. Leaflet shape is narrowly elliptical to obovate (Latin: ovatus, “egg-shaped”).

Leaves measure lengths of about 19.2 centimeters (7.55 inches) and widths of about 12.1  centimeters (4.76 inches). Terminal leaflets have lengths of about 14.4 centimeters (5.66 inches) and widths of about 5.6 centimeters (2.2 inches). Lateral leaflets are smaller, with lengths of about 11.4 centimeters (4.48 inches) and widths of about 4.2 centimeters (1.65 inches).

Leathery, smooth mature leaflets have dark green (Royal Horticultural Society color 147A) upper surfaces with dark green (RHS 144A) veins. Lower surfaces of mature leaflets are brown green (RHS 191A) with brown (RHS 165A) venation.

‘Candy Love’ flowers nod atop flower stems. A lengthy, natural flowering season lasts from December through April in Belgium. Each flower, which is not persistent, blooms for about 10 days.

Each flower comprises a single whorl of five sepals, with no detectable petals. Sepal length is about 3.8 centimeters (1.49 inches). Width measures about 2.9 centimeters (1.14 inches).

Smoothly edged and surfaced sepals are shaped ovately (Latin: ovatus, “egg-shaped”). Sepal tips have blunt, rounded tips described as obtuse.

Fully opened flowers have yellow green to white (RHS 150D to 155A) upper surfaces with light green coloring (RHS 144C) toward the base. With development, upper surfaces become brown green (RHS 146B, 146C), with brown purple coloring (RHS 178A, 178B) toward margins.

Lower surfaces of fully opened flowers are yellow green (RHS 150D), with brown red (RHS 182C) flushes. With development, lower surfaces become gray (RHS 197A), with brown purple (RHS 178A) margins and veins.

Helleborus ‘Candy Love’ originates from cross-pollination of a proprietary selection of female Helleborus niger plants and male Helleborus lividus plants. Thierry van Paemel designated the proprietary selection of unpatented seed and pollen hellebores as Wilgenbroek Selection. Cross-pollination occurred in a controlled environment at his nursery.

In 2005, the inventor discovered and selected a single flowering plant from the progeny of the cross-pollination program. Subsequent asexual reproduction by vegetative cuttings were conducted in a controlled environment in Zandvoort, North Holland province, northwestern Netherlands. Successive generations displayed stable and true reproduction of the selected hellebore cultivar’s distinctive characteristics.

With a desirable variety of attributes, Helleborus ‘Candy Love’ appears as a good garden performer. ‘Candy Love’ tolerates elemental forces, such as rain and wind, and thrives in temperatures ranging from about minus 20 degrees to about 30 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees to 86 degrees Fahrenheit). Attractive coloring, lengthy blooming period and appealing shape complete the distinctively desirable profile that ‘Candy Love’ hellebore maintains in bedded, border and container gardens.

Helleborus 'Candy Love' sells commercially under the trade name of 'Candy Love' in Thierry van Paemel's Winter Magic™ series. The series comprises floriferous potted hellebores that are deer resistant, drought tolerant and shade happy. Selections in the series all feature a beautiful powder-gray veil over their leathery leaves.

image of Helleborus planted named ‘Candy Love’ included in patent application filed Oct. 29, 2007, with United States Patent and Trademark Office: Thierry van Paemel, Public Domain, via U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

closeup of flowers and foliage of Helleborus plant named 'Candy Love,' Brighton, East Sussex, South East England: The Greenery Nursery and Garden Shop (The Greenery Nursery), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/greenerynsy/8510354915/

image of Helleborus planted named ‘Candy Love’ included in patent application filed Oct. 29, 2007, with United States Patent and Trademark Office: Thierry van Paemel, Public Domain, via U.S. Patent and Trademark Office @ http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=PP019413

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