The Tulip were originally a wild flower growing in the Central Asia and were first cultivated by the Turks as early as 1,000 AD. The Turks called the flower tulband or tulipant, which were their vulgar ways to pronounce the Persian dulband (turban). The name of the flower either referred to the resembles to a turban of its blossom, when expanded, or to its softness which felt like muslin – tülbend (the Ottoman Turkish word for muslin, which derived from the Persian turban as well).
Ironically, nowadays, the flower is famous in Turkey under its Persian name laleh. Laleh, in Arabic letters, contains the same letters as Allah and the flower is considered a holy symbol.
But how did the tulip make its way to Europe? It is believed that the first tulip bulbs and seeds were sent from the Ottoman Empire to Vienna in 1554 from Ogier de Busbecq, the ambassador of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor to the Sultan of Turkey.
And without a surprise, the first mention of the flower by a Western European comes from the same year, from Busbecq himself.
Austrians should had found the right conditions to grow the flower relatively fast as only 7 years later, the Swiss naturalist Konrad Gesner visit to describe its cultivation. In the next 15 years the tulip was successfully introduced in England. As Richard Hakluyt in 1582, The principal….discoveries of the English nation describes: “Now within these four years there have been brought into England from Vienna..these kinds of flowers called Tulipas.”
The tulipa spelling was kept until 1630s, as John Parkinson confirms in his 1629 novel: “We call it in English the Turks Cap, but most usually Tulipa.” With the first quotation of the modern spelling coming from The Herbal, 1633: “The blood-red Tulip with a yellow bottom.”
The tulips were brought to Holland in the 16th century as well, but they became extremely popular only after the Dutch botanist Carolus Clusius wrote the first major book on tulips in 1592. The story tells that after publishing it, the flower got so much interest so tulip bulbs were often stolen from his own garden. The first boom gave the rise of the Dutch Tulip Mania. The so-called Tulipmania reached its peak in 1637 when some tulip contracts reached a level about 20 times the level of three months earlier. An example of the tulip madness is the price of a bulb of a particularly rare tulip, Semper Augustus reaching the level of the cost of a luxurious house in Amsterdam. That was the first economic bubble known, which exploded as fast as couple of months.
Today many tulip festivals are held around the world, with the most famous been the Dutch Keukenhof, where this year until 17th May visitors can see Van Gogh inspired tulip installations.
