A Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Tulips are best known for the "mania" they inspired when they first hit Europe in the early 1600's. At the height of the frenzy, a single bulb of the most coveted "flamed" or "broken color" varieties could sell for the price of a house. In fact, the trade became so inflated and irrational that the bulbs were sold by the ounce, and often considered much too valuable to plant!

The tulip gained popularity much earlier in the Ottoman Empire, being grown there as early as 1000 AD. In fact, the flower is supposed to derive its name from the Turkish "thoulypen" ("turban"), and was sometimes known as Dalmation or Turk's Cap.

According to Persian legend, the tulip had its origins in the blood shed by a lover, and a red variety is still supposed to declare love to the recipient. Probably because of its later notoriety, the tulip itself stands for "fame," "luck," or "the perfect lover." A variegated bloom praises the recipient's "beautiful eyes," while a yellow type represents "hopeless love."

Writing in 1597, Gerard called the Dalmation Cap "a strange and forrein floure. . .with which all studious and painefull Herbarists desire to be better acquainted, because of that excellent diversitie of most brave floures which it beareth."

A Flemish ambassador to Constantinople named Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq originally brought some tulip bulbs back to Vienna with him in 1554. When the imperial gardener at Vienna, Carolus Clusius, moved to the Netherlands in 1593 to become head botanist at Leiden's Hortus, he took some of the bulbs along.

Although Clusius simply wanted to discover the tulip's medicinal value, others saw a potential money-maker in the novel blooms. When Clusius refused to sell any, the unscrupulous businessmen stole them.

Since only the wealthy could afford the rare flower, it quickly became a status symbol. One of the most coveted was the white and maroon "flamed" Semper Augustus, which routinely sold for thousands of guilders.

The broken stripes which made some tulips so unusual were actually caused by a virus. The only one of the original virused varieties known to be available today is the strawberry-and-cream Zomerschoon, which is supposed to date back to 1620.

The mania reached its peak between 1634 and 1637. By then, both rich men and poor were bidding on contracts for bulbs which hadn't even bloomed yet. This was known, scornfully, as "wind trading," and the tulip was beginning to be known as the "Fool's Cap!" Then, much like the overheated stock market of 1929, the boom crashed as abruptly as it had begun.

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