If the winter is very cold it will bloom later. The flowers are typically white with a tiny bit of pink. The flowers of lenten-rose may be colored chocolate and purplish green to pink and white. This hellebore is hardy to zone 5. This hellebore is hardy to zone 6, if protected from cold, dry winds.
History is littered with references to hellebores.
In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales hellebores were used as a laxative. There are many European legends surrounding the Christmas-rose. One of them is that a poor young shepherdess named Madelon started to cry because she didn't have a gift for baby Jesus. The angle Gabriel touched the ground with his staff and hellebores sprang forth, which Madelon took to baby Jesus. It was even considered dangerous to dig up a Christmas-rose, so closely linked to sorcery was it.