SG Heritage Dictionary

Heliotrope [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. Among the ancients, an instrument or machine for showing when the sun arrived at the tropics and the equinoctial line.

2. A genus or plants, the turnsole.

3. A mineral, a subspecies of rhomboidal quartz, of a deep green color, peculiarly pleasant to the eye. It is usually variegated with blood red or yellowish dots, and is more or less translucent. Before the blowpipe, it loses its color. It is generally supposed to be chalcedony, colored by green earth or chlorite.

Heliotrope [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. An instrument or machine for showing when the sun arrived at the tropics and equinoctial line.

2. A plant of the genus Heliotropium; -- called also turnsole and girasole. H. Peruvianum is the commonly cultivated species with fragrant flowers.

3. An instrument for making signals to an observer at a distance, by means of the sun's rays thrown from a mirror.

4. See Bloodstone (a).

Heliotrope Encyclopedia Britannica

HELIOTROPE, or Turnsole, Heliotropium, L. (Greek, ηλι.οτρόπι.ον, i.e., a plant which follows the sun with its flowers and leaves, or, according to Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., vii. 15, which flowers at the summer solstice), a genus of usually more or less hairy herbs or undershrubs of the tribe Heliotropieoe of the natural order Boraginecr, having alternate, rarely sub-opposite leaves; small white, lilac, or blue flowers, in terminal or lateral one-sided simple or once or twice forked spikes, with a calyx of five deeply-divided segments, a salver-shaped, hypogynous, 5-lobed corolla, and entire 4-celled ovary; fruit 2- to 4-sulcate or lobed, at length separable into four 1-seeded nuts, or into two hard 2-celled carpels; and seeds generally with a scanty albumen. In some species the cone surmounting the stigma is bearded. The heliotropes are indigenous mostly to tropical and subtropical regions, but a few species are natives of Europe, as H. europoeum, L., which is also a naturalized species in the southern parts of North America. H. indicum, L. (of the section Heliophytum, D.C.), is to be met with in equinoctial Africa, America, and Asia, but apparently not in Australia. Of 23 Australian species of Heliotropuιm that have been described, 16 ate endemic. The common heliotrope of English hothouses, 77....

peruvianum, L., popularly known as “cherry-pie,” is on account of the delicious odour of its flowers a great favourite with florists. It was introduced into Europe by the younger Jussieu, who sent seed of it from Peru to the royal garden at Paris. About the year 1757 it was grown in England by Mr P. Miller from seed obtained from St Germains. The plant has been known to occur with double flowers (Masters, Veg. Terat. , p. 510, Ray Soc., 1869). 77. coryrn- bosum, Ruiz et Pav., which was grown in Hammersmith nurseries as early as 1812, has larger but less fragrant flowers than Id. peruvianum. The species commonly grown in Russian gardens is H. suaveolens, which has white, highly-fragrant flowers. Heliotropes may be propagated either from seed, or, as commonly, by means of cuttings of young growths taken an inch or two in length. The plants require in hot weather a plentiful supply of water, and in winter careful protection from frost, which soon kills them. If favoured with a light rich soil and a warm conservatory, in which they may be grown in a border, or against a pillar, wall, or trellis, they bloom all the year round. The formation of flowers is promoted by a sunny situation. Many florists’ varieties of heliotrope are now under cultivation.

Pliny (2Vαi. Hist.,xxii. 29) distinguishes two kinds of “heliotropium,” the tricοccum, and a somewhat taller plant, the hclio- -scopium; the former, it has been supposed, is Croton Unctorium, L., and the latter the η ∖ ιoτρoπιov μικρόν of Dioscorides, or Ηeliotropium curopaeum. The helioscopium, according to Pliny, was variously employed in medicine; thus the juice of the leaves with salt served for the removal of warts, whence the term herbα verrucaria applied to the plant. What, from the perfume of its flowers, is sometimes called winter heliotrope, is the fragrant butterbur, or sweet-scented coltsfoot, Petasitcs {Tussilago) fragruns, Presl., a perennial Composite plant. (For fig. see Maund, The Botanic Garden, i., pl. iv., fig. 4, 1878; and Gardener's Chrom, Feb. 2, 1878, p. 147.)

See Ruiz and Pavon, Fl. Perus., ii. 2-4, pl. cvii.-cxi., 1799; P. Miller, Dιct.,eΛ. T. Martyn, i. pt. ii., 1807; Hist. Nat. de Plinie, ed. A. de Grandsagne, xiv. 158 seq., 1832; De Candolle, Prodr., x. 532, 1845; Bentham, Fl. Austral., iv. 392, 1869; Bentham and Hooker, Gen. Plant., ii. 843, 1873-76; ∏emsley, Handb. of Hardy Trees anil Shrubs, <fcc., p. 325, 1873; Proc. Americ. Acad. Arts and Sci., x. 49, Bost., 1875; Gardener's Chron., 1878, i. 21; and, for fig. of H. peruvianwn and H. corymbosum, Curtis's Βot. Maa., No. 141, 1791, and No. 1609, 1814.

HELIOTROPE, or Bloodstone, a cryptocrystalline variety of quartz, dark’green in colour, with small spots of red jasper, resembling drops of blood. The name, from the Greek ∙^λιoς, sun, and τρiπω, to turn, is stated by Pliny (A r αi. Hist., xxxvii. 60) to be due to its giving, when thrown into water, a red reflexion of the light of the sun. The modern heliotrope, however, is Pliny’s prcιsius (op. cit., xxxvi. 34); and what he terms heliotrope was apparently a leek-green prase or plasma, abundantly veined with blood-red jasper. Heliotrope is found in the Isle of Rum, and in Mull of Cantyre, Argyllshire, and in several foreign localities. It is of common occurrence in the trap-rocks of the Deccan. Medicinal and other virtues were formerly ascribed to the stone. It is used for signet rings and a variety of ornamental articles.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 11, p. 633
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Heliotroper [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

The person at a geodetic station who has charge of the heliotrope.