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Boraginaceae
Heliotrope
Heliotropium arborescens
Devotion, eternal love, faithfulness.
- Family
- Boraginaceae
- Genus
- Heliotropium
- Native to
- Peru
- Bloom season
- Summer, Fall
- Type
- Tender perennial
- Height
- 30–60 cm
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Soil
- Rich, well-drained
- Water
- Moderate
- Hardiness
- 10–11
- Lifespan
- Perennial in warm climates; annual elsewhere
Did you know
- The name means 'sun-turner' in Greek — heliotropes were once thought to follow the sun's path across the sky like sunflowers.
- Its scent is one of the most distinctive in the plant world: a heady mix of vanilla, cherry pie, and almond, which is why English gardeners nicknamed it 'cherry pie plant'.
- Victorian glasshouses were filled with heliotrope for their fragrance, and the perfume was a signature note in 19th-century men's colognes.
- It was named in Greek myth after the nymph Clytie, who was so in love with the sun god Helios that she sat unmoving and was turned into the flower.
- The flowers are tiny but cluster into wide flat heads, each containing hundreds of fragrant five-petaled blooms.
Color meanings
Purple
I turn toward you forever