Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tulip

TULIP (Tulipa), a genus of bulbous herbs belonging to the Liliaceæ. The species are found wild along the northern shores of the Mediterranean, in the Levant, Armenia, Caucasus, Persia, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. The cup-shaped flowers have six regular segments in two rows, as many free stamens, and a three-celled ovary with a sessile stigma, which ripens into a leathery many-seeded capsule. The species are numerous, and are distinguished one from another by the scales of the bulb being woolly or smooth on the inner surface, by the character of the flower-stalks, by the filaments being hairy or otherwise, and by other characters. Owing to the great beauty of the flowers they have been favourites in European gardens for two or three centuries, and have been crossed and recrossed till it has become almost impossible to refer the plants to their original types. The early flowering "Van Thol" tulips, the segments of which are mostly scarlet with yellow edges, are derived from T. suaveolens, a native of the Caspian region. T. Gesneriana, a native of Armenia and central Russia, is the origin of some of the later flowering varieties. T. pubescens, thought by Mr Baker to be a hybrid between the two species just named, is the source of some of the early flowering kinds known as "pottebakker," &c. T. oculus solis and T. Clusiana are lovely species, natives of southern France, and T. silvestris, with elegant yellow pendulous flowers, is a doubtful native of England. During the last few years, owing to the exertions of Russian naturalists, a large number of new species have been discovered in Turkestan, and introduced into Europe. Some of these are very beautiful, and render it probable that by intercrossing with the older species still further difficulties will be presented in the way of identification. These difficulties are further enhanced by the fact that, quite apart from any cross-breeding, the plants, when subjected to cultivation, vary so greatly in the course of two or three years from the original species from which they are directly descended that their parentage is scarcely recognizable. This innate power of variation has enabled the florist to obtain, and ultimately to "fix," so many remarkable varieties. At the present day tulips are less fashionable than they once were, and consequently the enormous prices given for new or improved varieties no longer obtain, though, even now, two and three guineas are asked for special bulbs. It must, however, be remembered that the "tulipomania" of the 17th century was really a form of gambling, in which admiration of the flower and interest in its culture were very secondary matters. Tulips were introduced into the Low Countries in the 16th century from Constantinople and the Levant by way of Vienna and Venice. There is a legend that an Antwerp merchant, to whom bulbs were sent, cooked them for onions; and to this day the natives of some parts of Persia and Afghanistan use the bulbs of Tulipa chrysantha for food. The mode of growth of a tulip bulb is worthy of attention. In spring, at the flowering period, each bulb is a composite structure. It consists, first, of the bulb of the year, which produces the flowers and the leaves. From the axil of one (or more) of the scales of the flowering bulb emerges a secondary bulb, destined to form leaves and flowers for the next season's growth. In like manner from the side of the second generation are produced tertiary bulbs, which flower in the third year after their formation. Each bulb, therefore, has an existence of three years, flowering in the third year, and dying afterwards, so that the bulb planted in the autumn is not the same one that flowered in the spring, but a second generation. For the cultivation of tulips, see Horticulture vol. xii. p. 259.