A mixture of White and Red Tulips growing in the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen mother's Garden at Walmer Castle, Kent
Tulips (Tulipa) are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm colours). They often have a different coloured blotch at the base of the tepals (petals and sepals, collectively), internally. Because of a degree of variability within the populations, and a long history of cultivation, classification has been complex and controversial. The tulip is a member of the lily family, Liliaceae, along with 14 other genera, where it is most closely related to Amana, Erythronium and Gagea. There are about 75 species, and these are divided among four subgenera. The name "tulip" is thought to be derived from a Persian word for turban, which it may have been thought to resemble by those who discovered it. Tulips originally were found in a band stretching from Southern Europe to Central Asia, but since the seventeenth century have become widely naturalised and cultivated (see map). In their natural state they are adapted to steppes and mountainous areas with temperate climates. Flowering in the spring, they become dormant in the summer once the flowers and leaves die back, emerging above ground as a shoot from the underground bulb in early spring. Growing wild over much of the Near East and Central Asia, tulips were cultivated in Byzantine Constantinople as early as 1055. By the 15th century, tulips were among the most prized flowers; becoming the symbol of the later Ottomans.[2] While tulips had probably been cultivated in Persia from the tenth century, they did not come to the attention of Northern Europeans until the sixteenth century, when Northern European diplomats to the Ottoman court observed and reported on them. They were rapidly introduced into Northern Europe and became a much-sought-after commodity during tulip mania. Tulips were frequently depicted in Dutch Golden Age painti
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Walmer Castle and Gardens, Walmer, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: bed, castle, deal, flower, flowers, gardening, gardens, grass, kent, petals, red, spring, tulips, variagated, walmer, white
