TULIP

Description

The eye-popping grand marshals of the spring flower parade, tulips have been grown and prized for more than a thousand years. The love of these brilliant blossoms has shaped the fortunes of entire nations, and that zeal continues today: even though they’re only in season for a few months, tulips rank among the world’s top five bestselling flowers for the year. 

The tulip family includes about 100 species and thousands of cultivars. Each tulip bulb grows one 4–27" (10–70 cm) stem which bears a large, single goblet-shaped flower and a few flat, waxy blue-green leaves near the base of the plant. The flowers have three petals on the inside of the blossom, cupped by three matching sepals on the outside, for the appearance of a six-petaled flower. Petals and sepals may be single or double; long and pointy, rounded and robust or somewhere in between; curling inward, arching outward or standing straight; solid, bicolor, striped, checked, fringed or one of a vast variety of combinations. Stamens, pistils and flower centers may be any color from subtle yellows to reds to blacks, but generally contrast with the color of the petals.

Tulips are perennials that bloom in spring, sleep in summer and grow in winter, needing real or simulated periods of summer warmth and winter chill to develop optimally. Commercial floriculturists treat them like annuals, unearthing and chilling tulip bulbs in the fall, then replanting for precisely timed bloom in late winter and early spring when demand is highest. They are sold both as cut flowers and as potted blooming plants.

Potted tulips can be sensitive to ethylene when it’s at high levels, but cut tulips are not.

Colors: Near-black to burgundy, red, pink, orange, peach, yellow, green, purple and white; also available in solids, speckles, ombre and bi-color patterns.

Special Care

All tulips should be stored at 32–36ºF (0–2ºC) and 85% relative humidity, with direct lighting overhead.

Cut flowers: Choose flowers barely starting to blush with color. Leaving bulbs attached can extend storage time up to 10 days. Tulips are geotropic (bend with gravity), phototropic (reach toward light) and continue to grow even when cut, so plan your storage and designs to outsmart these moving targets! Always store upright; wrap any bent stems in wet paper and place under a bright light to straighten.

When ready to use, cut or recut stems and rehydrate in water with a germicide. Don’t add any sugars, as they encourage blooms to open too quickly (blow). And though narcissus and tulips look magnificent together, don’t rehydrate them in the same container! Fresh-cut narcissi secrete a slimy sap that chokes water uptake in tulips. Rehydrate narcissi separately for a few hours, rinse the cut ends thoroughly, and then they can play nicely together with tulips in arrangements and bouquets.

Potted tulips: Display in a cool spot at 40ºF (4.5ºC) and keep soil moist but not wet, with bright light overhead and good air circulation. Plants should be sold at the green bud stage to maximize bloom life for the consumer.

Fun Facts:

• Tulips once caused an actual stock market crash! Dutch diplomats brought them to Holland from the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in the 1500s. The exotic flowers were an instant hit, and by 1634 the Dutch economy was caught up in a Wall Street-style frenzy of bulb trading and speculation which became known as “tulipomania.” Prices became so inflated that single bulbs were more valuable than gold and sold for as much as $2,000 apiece in today’s money (sometimes with a carriage or chateau thrown into the deal!). Also in Wall Street fashion, the tulip market crashed in 1637 and many tulip millionaires lost everything but their flowers. The Dutch government then regulated the tulip trade, and it gradually built to a more sustainable industry which is still the mainstay of Holland’s economy four centuries later.

• In 17th century Holland, the “broken” (striped) tulips were the most prized, not only for their beauty but for their mystique, since no one knew how the seemingly random patterns happened. A few centuries later, botanists determined the cause: aphids had spread a virus from Dutch peach trees to the tulips, with the side effect of disrupting the flowers’ pigmentation. Horticulturists have since developed methods of growing patterned tulips that don’t rely on disease.

• The flower’s name comes from a translation fluke. When Dutch diplomats pointed to the jaunty tulip blossoms tucked into Turkish turbans and asked their name, they were given the words for the headdress instead of the flower. (Though a turban actually does resemble the form of a tulip.) So, the Dutch word "tulpe," which became the Latin word "tulipa" and the English word tulip, originated with an innocent mashup of the Persian word "dulband" (meaning turban) and Turkish word "tulbent" (meaning gauze for wrapping). The Persian name for the flower was actually lale (LAH-leh) all along.

• Since tulips came to Europe by way of Holland, they turned up in those elaborate still-life Dutch Masters paintings. A lot. They could represent not only beauty, but wealth, status, the stages of human existence, the divine or other mysteries.

• Cooked tulips taste like onions. (Perhaps this was discovered when the tulipomania bubble burst and many tulip tycoons were left with nothing to eat but their investments.) On the other hand, the raw bulbs and sap are mildly toxic, so keep them away from pets and kids. If they irritate your skin, wear gloves when working with them.

• No bulbs ever grew wild in Holland. All of the nine billion flower bulbs that grow and thrive in Dutch fields each year come from plant ancestors which evolved in other parts of the world. And it all began 500 years ago with Holland’s first imported bulb: the tulip.

• In Russia, red tulips are a traditional romantic gift. The red flower represents the giver’s heart, and the black center symbolizes the burning mark of passion.

• The tulip is the national flower of Holland, Hungary, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan.

• The tulip is the 11th wedding anniversary flower.

• A member of the Liliaceae (lily) family, tulips are related to dozens of species of lilies, Fritillaria and its own huge family of tulip cultivars.