my fondness for heliotrope only began recently when i found a perfume with it as a main ingredient that i really adored (alkemia's old books and fresh flowers) and it's slowly spread over time. i like seeing it mentioned in books and mostly just want to document when i find it referenced in whatever i'm reading; at first i did this in my microblog but i thought a shrine-style page could be fun to keep up with.

the heliotrope, in greek mythology, was made when the nymph clytie was abandoned by her lover, the god helios, after he began seeking the love of the princess leucothoe. clytie informed leucothoe's father of the relationship and the king had her put to death. helios turned leucothoe into a frankincense tree. in the aftermath, clytie beseeched helios to return to her, but helios's heart had hardened against her. in her despair, clytie sat and stared at the sun for nine days and thus was turned into the sun-turning heliotrope flower*, their heads always turning after helios's chariot in the sky.

* the heliotrope in clytie's myth being the genus of flower discussed elsewhere in this shrine is up for debate and in some modern translations is even substituted entirely with a sunflower even though sunflowers were not native to the region.

in victorian floriography heliotrope represents devotion.

on the indiemakeupandmore subreddit from u/latenitechamomile: "I am languishing on my fainting couch, longing desperately for a fluffy, powdery heliotrope-centric perfume."

from The Count of Monte Cristo:

"Monte Cristo pulled him gently forward. 'Is it not appropriate,' he said, 'for us to spend the hours we have left like those ancient Romans who, when they were condemned to death by Nero, their emperor and their heir, would sit at a table decked with flowers and breathe in death with the scent of heliotrope and roses?'"

from Pale Fire:

"Into Alphina's or Betty's room another lodger moved, Balthasar, Prince of Loam, as I dubbed him, who with elemental regularity fell asleep at nine and by six in the morning was planting heliotropes (Heliotropium turgenevi). This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the dusk, and the garden beach, and a house of painted wood in a distant northern land."

* note to self to add a picture of my heliotrope tea tray