PERUVIAN HELIOTROPE. DEVOTED ATTACHMENT. THIS flower has been confounded with the sunflower, though it is of a different genus, and totally unlike the latter. To both has been ascribed the property of turning towards the sun, and following his course round the horizon; a property not confined to these flowers, as there are others that do the same in a greater or less degree. The blossoms of the Heliotrope form clusters of very small, delicate, fragrant flowers, generally of a faint purple colour, or white, sometimes red, and bluish white. It is, as its name implies, a native of Peru, where it was discovered by the celebrated Jussieu. While botanizing one day in the Cordilleras, he suddenly found himself overpowered by an intoxicating perfume. He looked around, expecting to find some gaudy flower or other from which it proceeded, but could perceive nothing but some handsome bushes, of a light green, the extremities of whose sprays were tipped with flowers of a faint blue colour. He went up to these bushes, which were about six feet high, and saw that the flowers which they bore were all turned towards the sun. Struck with this peculiarity, the learned botanist gave to the plant the name of Heliotrope, and, collecting some of its seeds, he sent them to the royal garden at Paris, where the Heliotrope was first cultivated in 1740. It has since spread to all the countries of Europe, and though there is nothing striking in its appear. ance, it has become a general favourite with the fair sex. An anonymous poet has drawn from this flower a signification the very reverse of that which we have attached to it: There is a flower, whose modest eye Is turned with looks of light and love, Let clouds obscure, or darkness veil, Her sighs no more their sweets exhale, Canst thou not trace a moral here, And thou art faithless as the flow'r. |