The History of Tulips

A tulip is a flower in the genus Tulipa, comprised of about 150 bulbous species, and in the family Liliaceae

Some may associate Tulips with Holland but in fact tulips have their origins in what was described as the western Mediterranean and parts of Central Asia like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Some species of Tulips can also be found growing wild in northern Africa, southern Europe, and in Japan.

Tulips have been associated with Holland because of their many festivals dating back hundreds of years. In the 1630's, heavy tulip speculation, called tulipomania, engulfed much of Holland, and farmers' rich and poor began speculating in the tulip trade. Some estimates figured a single bulb of prized varieties sold for more than $4,000, indeed a small fortune at the time.

Yet it was the empire of the Ottoman Turks that cultivated tulips on a large scale by the sixteenth century and it was through Turkey that most Tulips reached Western Europe and the Netherlands. Historic account described an Austrian ambassador to the Turkish Empire brought some tulip bulbs from Constantinople to his garden in Vienna. From Austria, the flower found its way to the Low Countries. In 1562, the first large shipment of Turkish tulips reached Antwerp, then part of the Dutch nation. The Turks also went through a period of tulipomania where the cultivation of tulip gardens became an obsession.

European gardeners grew fond of Tulips and the Netherlands soon starting cultivating Tulips and began producing prized specimens. Even today, the Netherlands remains the main source of tulip bulbs for much of the world, with millions cultivated each year. The value of the Dutch horticulture market has been estimated to be a quarter-billion dollars annually.

Tulips were called Lale in Turkey and it wasn't until they were introduced into Europe that they were called Tulips When many of gardeners in Europe saw a resemblance between the flower's shape and Turkish headwear, they dubbed the flower "tulipan", from "tuilbend", a Turkish word for "turban". From "tulipan" came the French word "tulipe" and the English word tulip.

The tulip has a peculiar power for variation that makes tracing the origins of most modern day Tulips varieties impossible. Because the Tulips grows from a single parent flower it can change greatly over the course of two or three generations so that the link between the later specimens and their parents can be scarcely recognizable. That alone is how we have come to see so many prized variegated tulips.

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