Heliotrope. 
1 
”3 
odour proceeded, he could discover nothing but some light 
green shrubs, the tips of whose elegant sprays were decked 
with faint purple blossom. Finding on inspection that all 
these tiny florets turned towards the sun, Jussieu gave the 
plant the name of Heliotrope, and collecting some of the seeds, 
forwarded them to the royal garden at Paris, where in 1740 
the heliotrope was first cultivated. It spread into all the coun¬ 
tries of Europe, and from its delicious scent soon became an 
especial favourite with the ladies. 
St. Pierre, in his exquisite “Studies of Nature,” speaking of 
this plant, says : “ The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum —or, to 
employ a better-known term, the Turnsol—which turns con¬ 
tinually towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country 
from which it comes, with dewy clouds, which cool and refresh 
its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.” 
To the Canary heliotrope florists gave the name of “ Ma¬ 
dame de Maintenon,” in flattery, it is supposed, to Louis XIV., 
as the sun to which his favourite lady always turned her eyes. 
Is it not this flower that Moore is thinking of when he so 
fancifully says 
“She, enamoured of the sun, 
At his departure hangs her head and weeps, 
And shrouds her sweetness up, and keeps 
Sad vigils like a cloister’d nun, 
Till his reviving ray appears, 
Waking her beauty as he dries her tears ”? 
An anonymous poet has deduced from this flower a meaning 
which, though given here, is quite the reverse of that assigned 
to it by florigraphists : 
“ There is a flower, whose modest eye “Let clouds obscure, or darkness veil, 
Is turned with looks of light and love; Her fond idolatry is fled; 
Who breathes her sweetest, softest sigh, Her sighs no more their sweets exhales 
Whene’er the sun is bright above. The loving eye is cold and dead. 
“ Canst thou not trace a moral here, 
False flatterer of the prosperous hour? 
Let but an adverse cloud appear, 
And thou art faithless as the flower. ” 
8 
