a love it has for that, luminary. At night it closes its blue flower as though it mourned. Edith Hamilton notes that Clytie's case is unique in Greek mythology, as instead of the typical lovesick god being in love with an unwilling maiden, it is a maiden who is in love with an unwilling god. Culture Similar to the story of Daphne used as an explanation for the plant's prominence in worship, Clytie' story might have been used for similar purposes in connecting the flower she turned into, the heliotrope, to Helios. An ancient scholiast wrote that the heliotropium that Clytie was turned into was the first preservation of the love for the god. Modern interpretations Identity of the flower Modern traditions substitute the purple turnsole with a yellow sunflower, which according to (incorrect) folk wisdom turns in the direction of the sun. The original French form tournesol primarily refers to sunflower, while the English turnsole is primarily used for heliotrope. Sunflowers however are native to North America, and were not found in antiquity in either Greece or Italy, making it impossible for ancient Greek and Roman authors to have included them in their etiological myths, as sunflowers were not part of their native flora and they would have not known about them and their sun-turning properties. It has also been noted that the heliotropium itself poses some difficulties for identification with Clytie's flower; heliotropium arborescens, which is the vivid purple variant, is not native to Europe either, instead coming from the Americas just like the aforementioned sunflower. Native variants of heliotropium or other flowers called "heliotrope" are also the wrong colour, either white (heliotropium supinum) or yellow (vilossum), when Ovid described it as "like a violet" and Pliny "blue". Both however lived in the post-Hellenistic period after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and could have been aware of the heliotropium indicum, a variant that can have a purplish or bluish corolla. Moreover, even heliotropium europaeum, a variant native in Europe which is normally white in colour, can have pale lilac flowers. Identity of the god Much like with Phaethon, another ancient myth featuring Helios, some modern retellings connect Clytie and her story to Apollo, the god of light, but the myth as attested in classical sources does not actually concern him; Ovid identifies twice the god Clytie fell in love with as Hyperione natus/e (the son of Hyperion),