Heliotrope (color)
# Heliotrope (color)

Heliotrope is a pink-purple tint that is a representation of the colour of the heliotrope flower.

The first recorded use of heliotrope as a color name in English was in 1882.

## Variations

### Heliotrope gray

The color heliotrope gray is displayed at right. The first recorded use of heliotrope gray as a colour name in English was in 1912.

### Old heliotrope

At right is displayed the colour old heliotrope.

Another name for this colour is old helio.

The first recorded use of old helio as a colour name in English was in 1926.

## In culture

* The color has been widely referenced as a characterization, the colour of key plot objects, or as flavor text in many works:
   * Heliotrope was a popular colour reference of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, script writers of Hancock's Half Hour.
   * In James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, "heliotrope" is the answer to the Maggies' riddle. Throughout the chapter, the word "heliotrope" is disguised a number of times, hidden either in anagrams, riddles, puns, or obscure allusions.
   * In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Polyjuice Potion brewed in order to disguise Hermione Granger as Mafalda Hopkirk is described as having a "pleasant heliotrope colour."
* The periorbital purplish discoloration occurring in dermatomyositis is called the "Heliotrope rash" after the colour.
* Heliotrope was among the handful of "half-mourning" colours worn by Victorians during the last stage of mourning.
* "Heliotrope" is the title of the fourth track on At the Drive-In's 1999 EP Vaya.
* Heliotrope was referenced as a health status condition of the service droid Kryten in the Red Dwarf Series V episode Terrorform.
* "Heliotrope Bouquet" is a slow drag two step by Scott Joplin (with contributions from Louis Chauvin) composed in 1907.
* In the TV series Yellowjackets, the members of the new religious movement surrounding Lottie Matthews wear heliotrope robes; as she says, "We make the dye ourselves from the flowers used to treat wounds."
