The headword is in the accusative case, evidently quoted from somewhere.
cf. epsilon 770; both entries derive from the scholia to Demosthenes 18.121.
1This probably refers to the black hellebore, Helleborus niger L (see web address 1), or its other form H. officinalis (setter-wort, Christmas herb/flower, melampode, in Greek also melanorizon). Spread all over Italy, in Greece probably H. orientalis and H. cyclophyllum. The hellebore is a well-known abortifacient used by Greek and Roman doctors: see e.g. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants 9.10.1; Hippocrates, Diseases of Women 2.126; Dioscorides 4.148 and 4. 162; see also Riddle 1992, p. 34. The plant has a complicated chemical composition of various glycosides and is of course poisonous -- indeed one of the four classic poisons. There are also a green and a white hellebore (Veratrum album, - in North America V.viride, Indian poke: web address 2).↩
2Perhaps to be read as karpion, a diminutive of karpos, which is also (LSJ s.v.) a vulgar name for hellebore; however, the form karpin is attested (in ps.-Herodian and elsewhere).