Salt Heliotrope

Heliotropium curassavicum

native · Hill Country

Salt Heliotrope is a shrub native to the Texas Hill Country that grows 1–2 ft tall and 2 ft wide. It wants full sun or part shade and medium water, and handles caliche and clay soil. Blooms white in mid spring. Good for bees and butterflies.

Wet ground only. A wetland plant: it needs standing water or saturated soil — a pond edge, creek bank or rain garden, not a dry upland bed.

Will it grow in your yard?

Enter your ZIP. The finder checks Salt Heliotrope against your microclimate, then ranks it against your sun, your watering and deer pressure.

The facts

5 sources

Type: Shrub
Sun: Full sun to part shade (5–8 hrs of direct sun)
Water: Medium
Height: 1–2 ft
Spread: 2 ft
Bloom: Mid Spring · white
Foliage: Deciduous or dies back in winter
Soil: Takes caliche and clay · recorded on caliche, clay, dry, loam, saline, sand, well drained
Wildlife: Supports bees and butterflies

Where it grows

Recorded in these EPA Level IV ecoregions in the Austin and Hill Country launch area:

Balcones CanyonlandsLlano UpliftEdwards Plateau WoodlandNorthern Blackland PrairieSouthern Post Oak SavannaFloodplains and Low TerracesLimestone Cut PlainSan Antonio Prairie

11 occurrence records in Central Texas (GBIF).

Can you buy it?

Also grows here — hard to find. Native and recorded growing in Central Texas, but not on the grower stock lists we read. Sourcing varies: some are stocked widely, others you will have to hunt for.

also grows from seed It starts readily from seed, so a packet from a native-seed supplier, or seed collected with permission, is often the easiest way to get a plant no nursery pots.