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About
a Bulb
They
rose out of the grave in my front yard. Green fingers pushed
through soil and compost, thickening with the warmth and light
of spring days. From each opened palm of leaves, a stalk lifted
into the air one lone thickening bud that slowly reddened,
opening into a bloom as a warm sun swelled its petals. The
tulips have risen.
Last Halloween I planted six tulip bulbs in the middle of
a front-yard grave I made of leaves and compost, with a cluster
of worms added. I wrote “War” on its cardboard headstone.
The tulip bulbs I’d added to the plot are now in full bloom
and are the sole reminder of the grave.
Tulips are not native to Holland. While Holland now dominates
world tulip sales (controlling 80 percent of the market and
producing some three billion bulbs each year), the tulip is
of more distant origin. The best evidence points to central
Asia as the motherland of tulips, specifically the foothills
and valleys of the Pamir and Tien-shan mountains in the area
where China, Tibet, Tadzhikistan and Afghanistan meet. The
plant’s ability to weather extreme cold, survive poor soil,
and bloom in cool temperatures helped it adapt to this harsh
environment. In this land of cold winters and dry summers,
wild tulips raise red blossoms to the spring. For the early
peoples in these areas, they must have been a welcome sign
of seasonal change. For others to come, the flower would symbolize
life itself.
Turkish peoples of the Middle East had early contact with
the homeland of tulips and brought plants back from their
travels. Records indicate that Turks were cultivating tulips
by about 1000 A.D. This simple little plant soon went on to
be an important addition to the gardens of sultans and a powerful
religious symbol in Islam. For the Ottoman Turks of the 16th
century, the tulip was seen as the flower of God. It was a
holy plant. Some believed that growing these plants could
help their souls make it to paradise. Images of tulips were
embroidered into clothes, woven into carpets and added to
the symbols adorning saddles and armor.
It appears that the earliest European exposure to the tulip
occurred during visits to Istanbul at the time of the Ottoman
ruler Suleyman. Suleyman had made substantial military incursions
into Eastern Europe by the middle of the 16th century, and
the ruling families of Europe began to take notice and visit
Istanbul. European gardens at this time were devoted to edible
and medicinal plants, the flower gardens popular in Istanbul
were alien to European horticultural leanings. The gardens
of these Turks championed the colors, shapes and scents of
flowers that were neither eaten nor mixed into medicinal concoctions.
How strange.
The 16th-century gardens of Istanbul nurtured the development
of a number of tulip varieties. Certain characteristics of
the flowers were fostered by selective plantings. The wild
flower of the mountains was quickly changing in accord with
the cultural preferences of the Turks and the skills of their
gardeners. Turkish reverence for tulips eventually would lead
to spring tulip festivals to celebrate the plant.
The word “tulip” is derived from the Turkish word for turban.
It was further modified as it was incorporated into French
and Dutch before arriving at our English word. The flowers
were named such because of their visual similarity to the
shape and color of Middle Eastern head coverings.
It was not until 1593 that tulips began to get a foothold
among the Dutch. It was the year when Carolus Clusius became
chief botanist for the botanical garden of the University
of Leiden. While previously employed at the Imperial Medicinal
Herb Garden in Prague, Clusius had received a number of tulip
bulbs from Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, who had lived in Istanbul
as the ambassador of the Holy Roman emperor. Some credit de
Busbecq with naming tulips for turbans. Clusius brought a
collection of tulip bulbs with him to Leiden and set about
planting his own garden. Much of the vast tulip market that
developed in 17th-century Holland can be traced back to bulbs
looted from Clusius’s garden by clandestine tulip rustlers.
Tulips grow from bulbs and are related to other bulbous plants
like the crocus, hyacinth and iris. The bulb is essentially
a tulip with its stem drawn in above specialized leaves that
store carbohydrates and sugars to meet the plant’s nutritional
needs. Tulips can be propagated by seeds or offset bulbs,
which are clones that form from the parent bulb. Seeds take
five years or more to produce flowers, and one doesn’t know
what one has until it blooms. Most tulip farmers make use
of the quicker growing clones that will generally produce
flowers identical to the parent plant.
The slow process through which tulip bulbs were produced ensured
a scarcity. As tulips became increasingly popular in Holland,
this scarcity caused prices to rise, fueled by the willingness
of wealthy tulip lovers to expend large amounts of capital
for the plants. Trade in tulips got so hot that it led to
what is called Tulipomania. From 1634 to 1637, tulip prices
soared to where single bulbs were selling for the equivalent
of thousands of dollars. People were buying and selling tulips
using promissory notes for bulbs still in the ground. Speculation
ran rampant until prices came to a crashing halt in February
1637, with economic effects reverberating through the larger
economy. The Dutch went on from this fiscal disaster to become
the world’s top bulb producer, even selling bulbs back to
the Turks for their gardens. The Dutch also exported their
love of tulips to their colony of New Netherland (New York).
So, it seems the tulips in my front yard have journeyed from
the other side of the planet and passed through a colorful
multicultural history of cultivation before spreading their
red blooms and flashing their springtime sign for me. I am
most grateful that wild tulips still bloom in distant mountain
valleys.
—Tom
Nattell
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