Andrej ŠUŠEK
pp. 27-31

Th e Christmas rose (Helleborus niger L.) is becoming an important ornamental plant. In the future, a systematic genetic improvement will probably become inevitable and therefore the characterisation of the naturally grown populations and the accessions within germplasm collections will be extremely important for the breeders.
We followed the idea that characterisation of genetic materials has to involve highly heritable morphological traits which are important for the selection and are easy for the determination. Th e study is based on 5-year long observations of the Slovenian and Croatian naturally grown populations and germplasm collections. The paper describes 72 morphological traits that appear to be at least partly genetically controlled and can be used as descriptors of Christmas rose genotypes.

Key words: Christmas rose, Helleborus niger, ornamental plant, morphological descriptors

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