Cultivated-Plant Study 



603 



THE TULIP 

 Teacher's Story 



We might expect that the Lady Tulip would be a 

 stately flower, if we should consider her history. 

 She made her way into Europe from the Orient 

 during the sixteenth century, bringing with her the 

 honor of being the chosen flower of Persia, where 

 her colors and form were reproduced in priceless 

 webs from looms of the most skilled weavers. No 

 sooner was she seen than worshipped, and shortly 

 all Europe was at her feet. 



A hundred years later, the Netherlands was 

 possessed with the tulip mania. Growers of bulbs, 

 and brokers who bought and sold them, indulged in 

 wild speculation. Rare varieties of the bulbs 

 became more costly than jewels, one of the famous 

 black tulips being sold for about $1800. Since then, 

 the growing of tulips has been one of the noted 

 industries of the Netherlands, and now the bulbs on 

 our market are imported from Holland. 



There are a great many varieties of tulips, and 

 their brilliant colors make our gardens gorgeous in 

 early spring. Although this flower is so prim, yet it 



bears well close observation. The three petals, or inner segments of the 

 perianth, are more exquisite in texture and in satiny gloss on their inner 

 surface than are the three outer segments or sepals; each petal is like 

 grosgrain silk, the fine ridges uniting at the central thicker portion. In the 

 red varieties, there is a six pointed star at the heart of the flower, usually 

 yellow or yellow-margined, each point of the star being at the middle of a 

 petal or sepal; the three points on the petals are longer than those on the 

 sepals. 



When the flower's bud first appears, it is nestled down in the center of 

 the plant, scarcely above the ground. It is protected by three green 

 sepals. As it stretches up, the bud becomes larger and the green of the 

 sepals takes on the color of the tulip flower, until when it opens there is 

 little on the outside of the sepals to indicate that they once were green. 

 But they still show that they are sepals, for they surround the petals, each 

 standing out and making the flower triangular in shape as we look into it. 

 During stonns and dark days, the sepals again partially close about the 

 flower. 



