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heliotrope

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
heliotrope (hē`lēətrōp') [Gr.,=sun-turning] or turnsole, name for any plant that turns to face the sun, especially members of the genus Heliotropium of the family Boraginaceae. The garden heliotrope is a valerian, and the winter heliotrope, or sweet coltsfoot, is a composite.

heliotrope

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Garden heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens)
(credit: Walter Dawn)
Any of about 250 species of tropical or temperate, mostly herbaceous, plants that make up the genus Heliotropium, in the borage family, found throughout the world. Included are many weedy species. The best known is garden heliotrope (H. arborescens), a shrubby perennial that bears fragrant, purple to white, flat-clustered, five-lobed flowers in coiled sprays, similar to forget-me-nots.

heliotrope
symbol of lovers’ faithfulness. [Flower Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 174]
See : Faithfulness
heliotrope
effective if drunk with proper invocations. [Medieval Folklore: Boland, 43]
See : Invisibility


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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
So Laurie played and Jo listened, with her nose luxuriously buried in heliotrope and tea roses.
Little Women by Alcott, Louisa May View in context
Close-fitting and black, with heliotrope silk facings under a figured net, it looked far from new, just on this side of shabbiness; in fact, it accentuated the slightness of her figure, it went well in its suggestion of half mourning with the white face in which the unsmiling red lips alone seemed warm with the rich blood of life and passion.
Chance by Conrad, Joseph View in context
This is illustrated by Turgenev's "Smoke," where the hero is long puzzled by a haunting sense that something in his present is recalling something in his past, and at last traces it to the smell of heliotrope.
The Analysis of Mind by Russell, Bertrand View in context
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