The History Of Tulips (Part 2)

Tulips in Europe

During the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, the tulip became a national symbol of the Ottoman Empire. Not only did the flower show up in artwork – especially ceramics – but early horticulturists also began the process of selective breeding, leading the way for our modern tulips.

It is during this period that tulips are thought to have entered Western Europe, via an Ottoman ambassador to the Habsburgs, who first recorded used of the word “tulip” in a 1554 manuscript. The earliest known European cultivation is only five years later in 1559, and the flowers were still rare enough in 1565 for a botanical illustration to label one as Narcissus (daffodil).

This invisibility would quickly disappear. In 1590s Holland, Charles L’Ecluse planted the flower at the University of Leiden’s gardens – a leader in botanical innovation – and discovered it could tolerate Northern Europe’s harsh climate. From there, tulips began to spread as a luxury item and status symbol in Holland, due in part to the bright petal colors which was difficult to find in other plants. Trading in tulip bulbs became intensely profitable, leading to a period widely called “Tulip Mania,” which occurred in Amsterdam from 1634 to February 1637. During this period, a single bulb could allegedly go for as much as 12,000 guilders – about the price of a fashionable Amsterdam townhouse.

Most popular in Tulip Mania were those flowers labeled as “Bizarden,” or Bizarres, which featured two colors on a petals in strange, stripey arrangements. While unknown at the time, these strange arrangements are caused by tulip breaking virus, a set of potyviruses. While these viruses do cause unique color patterns, they also severely decrease a plant’s ability to create new bulbs, leading to smaller and weaker flowers over time – until the plant dies off completely.

This, in the end, would cause tulip mania to come to an end. Tulips were sold on speculation, meaning folks would buy next year’s bulbs based on the current year’s flowering – for example, buying flowers for the 1636 season in the spring of 1635. When the quantity of bulbs sold failed to materialize in 1637 due to ongoing impacts of tulip breaking virus – combined with the flower declining in fashionability – the bubble burst, and Tulip Mania came to an end.

While the exact extent of Tulip Mania participation is unclear – contemporary scholars think it was likely restricted to a small set of the Dutch elite – it remains a cultural touchpoint, and tulips are, once again, important in the economy of the Netherlands. More than one million people visit Keukenhof Show Gardens to see the tulips every year, and exports of tulip bulbs comprise up to 10% of the Dutch GDP.

Tulips in America

Tulips came quickly to America. By 1642, they were growing in settlers gardens in what is now Manhattan (then New Amsterdam), sent over as a symbol of Dutch imperialism. In 1698, William Penn reported tulips in the palatial gardens of John Tatham, a settler in what is now New Jersey. Still, it is likely that in these early years of America tulip cultivation was limited, with the majority of garden space dedicated to plants needed for subsistence and medicine.

By the time of the American Revolution, tulips were firmly entrenched in American garden culture – they are mentioned more than any other plant in Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, and are featured prominently in portraits by artists such as John Singleton Copley. Early plant explorer John Bartram received tulip bulbs from English plantsman Peter Collinson in exchange for shipments of plants native to the Americas. There is even a carving of a tulip on a quoin at Bartram’s Philadelphia home.

In these early years, cultivation of tulips – just like with other purely ornamental plants – was limited to a certain class of Americans – usually white, usually men, and usually incredibly wealthy – those with intellectual pursuits, who had time to follow them, and who had the funds and connections to import bulbs to America for their own use. Small pockets of sale may have existed, especially around cities – a newspaper here in Boston advertised fifty varieties of tulip bulbs in 1760 – but cultivation remained isolated. This continued until 1849, when a travelling salesman named Hendrik van der Schoot came to America selling bulbs. The bulbs were a quick sell, especially to the many recent immigrants missing home.

It was an immigrant named John Scheepers, in fact, who revolutionized the American tulip trade. In the process of moving, Scheepers was offered a position as the American representative of a bulb exporter. He eventually founded his own company, whose catalogs – illustrated with lush watercolors, and later photography, published for years in hardback, stood out amongst trade lists. In addition to stock lists, Scheepers would often release marketing materials with planting advice. In 1951, he was the first to introduce Darwin hybrid tulips – the kind you and I are most familiar with seeing – and, along with this release, was an early proponent of mass planting – lots and lots of one kind of bulb, instead of the hyper-curation of specific, rare cultivars. As anyone who has visited a garden (including the Garden at Elm Bank!) recently would know, this idea was revolutionary.