Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Dryope, daughter of Dryops (or wife of Andraemon in Ovid’s genealogy), was a nymph once mortal, companion of the Hamadryads on Mount Oeta. Walking with her infant son Amphissus, she plucked flowers of the lotus—unaware that the plant was the transformed nymph Lotis, who had fled Priapus’s lust and become the tree. Blood dripped from the broken stems; the lotus trembled. In punishment (or by the logic of violated metamorphosis), Dryope’s own feet rooted; bark climbed her legs and body as she nursed the child. She had time only to bid farewell to her father and husband, to warn women against picking flowers, and to ask that her son still play beneath her shade. She became a lotus-tree (or related tree), a voice and leaves where a mother had been. Ovid places the tale in Iole’s mouth as a warning narrative within the Heracles–Deianeira cycle’s aftermath. Greek handbook traces of Dryope exist, but the continuous pathos—infant at the breast, speaking bark, farewell—is Ovidian; this catalogue therefore labels the entry **Roman transmission** of a Greek-named dryad aetiology.