Tulips: from Turkish turban to Amsterdam canalside house

Ah, tulips! You’d think you can hardly get anything more Dutch, but the tulip is actually pure Iranian, pure Afghan and pure Kazakh. Nomads brought the colourful flowers to Turkey, where many sultans started wearing a tulip on their turban. That’s how the flower got its name: ‘tulipan’ means ‘turban’.

Origin
Nowadays, wild Tulips can be found growing wild from north Africa and southern Europe across to north-west China. The greatest diversity can be found in three mountain ranges in central Asia: the Pamirs, the Tian Shan and the Hindu Kush. Also in the Netherlands you see a lot of Tulips in people’s gardens.

Moreover, ever since the Dutch Golden Age (17th century) we have specialised in breeding and growing them on a large scale for commercial use. With cold Winters, long Springs with cold nights and a dry summer, the climate here is ideal for tulips. Tulips need a cold night and a cold winter in order to be able to grow, which is why they can’t be cultivated in a warm climate. That is how they sneaky developed into a Dutch trademark.

Photo courtesy Dutch Flower Council

Symbolism
If you gave someone Tulips in the sixteenth century, you were giving them a fortune. At that time the flower was incredibly popular and a speculative trade in Tulip bulbs developed. You could buy a whole canalside house in Amsterdam for the price of one Tulip bulb in those days. A nice bunch of Tulips now costs just a couple of pounds, but the symbolism has gained in value. If you give someone Tulips, you’re also giving them a message. Hence red Tulips mean passionate love, and with black Tulips you’re saying: ‘I love you so much I will sacrifice everything for you.’ So don’t give those to just anybody.

Colours and shapes
The ever-cheerful Tulip comes in white, red, yellow, pink, purple, orange, green or with multi-coloured petals. The shapes of the Tulip are also a feast for the eye. You can find them with a single or double row of petals, whilst there are also eye-catching fringed and parrot Tulips with serrated petals, and there’s the playful lily-flowered Tulip. Peony Tulips look like peonies, and French Tulips are exceptionally tall (unlike the average French mademoiselle) and have very large flowers.

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