Beautiful, jewel-like, ephemeral—the tulip has been an object of passion for centuries.
Tulip History
The first tulips grew wild in the area now known as Kazakhstan, and they spread east across Asia and west toward the Mediterranean. It took humans, though, to move them north of the Alps. It isn't known who brought the first tulips to Western Europe from Turkey, though we do know it was during the reign of the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-66). They were first grown in Bavaria around 1559.
The word "tulip" comes from the Turkish word for turban. This might be because of the similarity in shape, or it might refer to the fact that Turks at the time would wear tulips tucked into their turbans for adornment.
Tulips reproduce slowly and unreliably in the home garden, so they were prized as precious collectibles. Their rarity and jewel-like beauty made them especially appropriate for tiny Dutch gardens, where individual specimens, rather than mass plantings, were the rule.
How ‘Broken’ Tulips Led to Tulipmania
Tulips hybridize well, so over the centuries, breeders have responded to changing fashions in the shapes and colors of new tulip varieties.
Growers found that the "daughter" bulbs they planted might or might not look like their "mother" bulb. In a bed of a hundred tulips, one or two might spontaneously "break" into subtle, gorgeous streaks and stripes of different colors. These "broken" tulips appeared mysteriously and were much prized by connoisseurs.
No one knew what caused breaking, so growers tried many different techniques to encourage it. They sprinkled dye on beds of white bulbs or mixed various additives—pigeon droppings and plaster from old houses were both popular—into the soil. Some growers tried tying together mismatched halves of bulbs of different colors.
Nobody could reliably produce the dazzling broken tulips, though, so growers had to wait until one presented itself. When it did, its daughter bulbs tended to be small and weak, and wouldn't necessarily grow to blooming size. Thus the broken lines tended to die out quickly—making them all the rarer.
This is the basis of Tulipmania, the frenzy for buying and selling tulip bulbs that swept Holland during the early part of the 1600s. In 1623, one bulb of the variety Semper Augustus (a broken tulip with red and white streaks) went for about 1,000 florins at a time when the average yearly income was 150 florins. Prices just continued to rise for over a decade.
In 1637, the bubble burst when a set of bulbs was put up for auction—and nobody bid. The market collapsed and the fever of Tulipmania finally broke. Despite a brief backlash, tulips remained popular—and pricey, though not foolishly so.
Breeding and trading continued, as did efforts to force tulips to break. It wasn't until the 1920s, though, that the cause of breaking was discovered: a virus, carried by the peach potato aphid. The gorgeous streaking and feathering of a broken tulip is a sign that the plant is diseased, and the weakness and small size of its offset bulbs a secondary result. Once this disease was identified, efforts were taken to eradicate it, and the growing and sale of virus-ridden tulips outlawed.
Today, one special garden, the Hortus Bulborum in Limmen, the Netherlands, still grows true virus-broken bulbs under controlled conditions. Their beauty and diversity are breathtaking, but they're too dangerous to grow commercially.
Instead, the Rembrandt tulips sold today are disease free, and get their gorgeous streaked appearance from the careful breeding of healthy stock.
The rich history of the tulip is matched by its breathtaking beauty. The flowers have a quality that no painting or photo can ever adequately capture.
Learn More
- Tulip Types and Bloom Times: Read Breck’s Bulb Guide to choose the best bulbs for your garden.
- How to Grow Tulips: from planting bulbs to encouraging tulips to return, this guide covers everything you need to know.
- Tulip History: To dive into the long history of tulips, the definitive resource is the aptly named book, The Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad by Anna Pavord.