Tulip

Tulip (Tulipa), a genus of plants of the natural order Liliaceæ, having an inferior bell-shaped perianth, of six distinct segments, without nectaries, a sessile three-lobed stigma, a three-cornered capsule, and flat seeds. The bulb is fleshy and covered with a brown skin. Between forty and fifty species are known, mostly natives of the warmer parts of Asia. The name tulip is derived through the French and Italian from the Turkish tulband, Persian dulband, originally a Hindustani word, 'a turban.' The most famous of all florists' flowers is the Garden Tulip (T. gesneriana), which is from 18 inches to 2 feet high, with a smooth stem, bearing one erect, large flower; the leaves ovate-lanceolate, glaucous, and smooth. The tulip is a native of the Levant; it was brought from Constantinople to Augsburg by Conrad Gesner in 1559, and rapidly spread throughout all parts of Europe. The varieties in cultivation are innumerable. The tulip mania of the 17th century in Holland was the most remarkable of its kind that has ever occurred in horticultural or perhaps any other kind of commerce. Lindley and Moore say: 'Their (tulips') price rose above that of the most precious metals. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the high prices paid for bulbs—amounting in some instances to 2500 and even 4600 florins—represented the estimated value of a root, since these large sums often changed hands without any transfer of property. Bulbs were bought and sold without even being seen—without even being in existence. In fact, they were the subject of a speculation not unlike that of railway scrip in this country at no very distant date.' The tulip is still most sedulously cultivated in Holland, especially at Haarlem, whence bulbs are largely exported; but attention is almost exclusively devoted to the cheaper varieties, which are used in hundreds or thousands for the purposes of decoration in gardens and rooms throughout winter and spring. The purely florists' varieties, which gave rise to the tulip mania, are not suited for this purpose; they are nowhere now cultivated more zealously than in England, by a limited band of connoisseurs in the home counties and in Lancashire. The tulip is prized merely for the size and beauty of its flowers, its smell being rather unpleasant. Great attention is paid to the cultivation of tulips, not only in the gardens of the wealthy, but often in those of the humbler inhabitants of small towns and villages, in which beautiful beds of tulips may often be seen. Tulips succeed best in a light, dry, and somewhat sandy soil. Bulbs are planted in the end of October, or beginning of November, and the flowers are produced early in summer. Beds of choice tulips are protected in spring by hoops and mats; and in the flowering season an awning of thin canvas is spread over them, which greatly prolongs the duration of their beauty, as they are soon spoiled by exposure to strong sunshine. Tulips are propagated by offset bulbs, and new varieties are raised from seed. Another species of tulip cultivated in gardens is the Sweet-scented Tulip, or Van Thol Tulip (T. suaveolens), which has yellow or red flowers, inferior to those of the common garden tulip in beauty, but prized for their fragrance, and for appearing more early in the season. It is often cultivated in pots in windows. It is a native of the south of Europe. The Wild Tulip (T. sylvestris), a native of many parts of Europe and Asia, is admitted into the British flora, but is a very doubtful native of Britain. It is common in the woods and vineyards of Germany and the south of Europe. It has a slender stem, narrow lanceolate leaves, and a somewhat drooping, fragrant, yellow flower. It develops offset bulbs at the end of fibres thrown out from the root, at some distance from the parent plant. Its bulbs are eaten in Siberia, although bitterness and acridity characterise all the bulbs of this genus.