Flowers | Flower Facts | Tulip - Tulipmania
Tulip - Tulipmania
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Most people associate tulips with Holland, "tulips from Amsterdam" as the song goes, But even before a European envoy found them in the ornamental garden of a Turkish sultan, they were popular with the Indian shahs. They were originally native to Turkey, Iran, Syria and parts of Asia
and have been cultivated in Europe since the 16th century.
It was the Dutch who began to breed them in 1593. The first tulip bulb was planted by the Dutch botanist Carolus Clusius, in the Hortus Botanicus of Leiden and by 1633 the Dutch upper classes had been gripped by Tulip mania. Bulb merchants were earning the equivalent of £30,000 a month by trading in futures. Bulbs were changing hands for up to £400 - the equivalent of £4 million today, while they were still in the ground and before the buyer had even seen it in flower!.


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