THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



not infrequent, and when blind tulips are present in noticeable 

 numbers in display beds the results are decidedly disappointing. 



During the past two years blind tulips have been numerous in 

 the plantings grown at the New York Botanical Garden. This 

 has afforded opportunity for observations of the occurrence of 

 blind tulips among various varieties and of some of the conditions 

 under which they developed. Experiments conducted to ascer- 

 tain what the subsequent performance of blind plants may be 

 have given some very definite results. 



In the autumn of 1914 a special planting of large numbers of 

 tulips was made at the New York Botanical Garden in the con- 

 servatory court of range i as described by Nash.* 



The varieties Cottage Maid, La Reine, Rose Grisdelin, Crim- 

 son King, Chrysolora and Grand Due were represented in the 

 plantings, involving a total of about 20,000 bulbs. Practically 

 every bulb produced a plant with a bloom all combining to give 

 color effects of unusual beauty which attracted considerable 

 attention. 



At the close of the period of vegetative growth of the leaves, 

 the bulbs were dug, spread out on the floor of a basement until 

 " dry," then sorted according to size, placed in bags and kept in a 

 cool dry semi-dark basement until the planting in the following 

 autumn. All varieties were treated in the same manner. The 

 largest of these bulbs were selected for planting in the following 

 autumn and usually these supplied about half the number origi- 

 nally planted. To complete the plantings new bulbs were pur- 

 chased. Some changes in the color scheme were made which 

 necessitated the purchase of bulbs of other varieties. No bulbs 

 of Cottage Maid were planted in the conservatory court in 191 5, 

 but a larger number of Rose Grisdelin were planted. 



In the following spring (1916) large numbers of the varieties 

 Cottage Maid and Rose Grisdelin came blind, but no other varie- 

 ties were blind. In the majority of cases the full complement 

 of leaves were formed quite as shown in No. i of Plate 37. As 

 this was the first experience at the Garden with the occurrence 

 of considerable numbers of blind tulips, it was deemed desirable 



* George V. Nash. Display of tulips. Jour. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 15 : 89-90. 

 April, 1915. 



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