Note 2599 — BOOK XXII. THE PROPERTIES OF PLANTS AND FRUITS.

Fée identifies it with the Heliotropium Europæum of Linnæus, the heliotrope, or verrucaria. The Heliotropium of Ovid and other poets, with a violet or blue flower, is, no doubt, a different plant, and is identified by Sprengel, Desfontaines, and Fée with the Hesperis matronalis of Linnæus, rocket or julian, or, as we not inaptly call it, from its pleasant smell, cherry-pie. Pliny speaks of his Heliotropium as having a “blue flower,” cœruleum. This is probably an error on his part, and it is supposed by commentators that he read in the Greek text ὑποπόρφυρον, “somewhat purple,” by mistake for ὑπόπυῤῥον, “somewhat red,” as we find it.