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In 1786, while serving as Minister to France, Jefferson sent a collection of seeds and plants home to friends, including the lovely blue-flowering heliotrope: "To be sowed in spring. A delicious flower, but I suspect it must be planted in boxes & kept in the house in winter. The smell rewards the care." This is the species, or wild form, of heliotrope and is likely identical to the one Jefferson knew in the eighteenth century.