CLASS VI. ORDER I. 1 TULIPA. 489 



Hat. — Name fioin the Persian word toHban, a Turban, from 

 ihe gayand varied colours of its flowers, similar to a Turk's turban. 



1. T. si/lves'lris, Linn. (Fig. .05G.) Wild Tulip. Stem smootli, 

 single flowered ; the base of the inner segments of the perianth and 

 the filaments downy ; stigma obtuse ; leaves alternate, linear lanceolate. 



English Botany, t. (J3. — English Flora, vol. ii. p. 140. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 163. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 266 — Nat. Ord. 

 Tulipacrce, De Cand. — Hemorocaliidece, R. Brown. 



Bulb ovate, swollen on one side, and enveloped in loose dark brown 

 dry membranous coats. Stem erect, except being slightly curved at 

 the top, round, smooth, simple, leafy to about the middle, from one to 

 one and half feet long. Leaves two to four, linear lanceolate, tapering 

 at both ends, smooth, somewhat fleshy, a glaucous green, the lower 

 ones tapering into a footstalk of variable length, the upper ones form- 

 ing a close sheath round the stem, and the top one half embracing it. 

 Flotver solitary, terminating the stem, a bright yellow, tinged with 

 green on the outside, sweet scented, the perianth of six ovate acumi- 

 nated pieces, bearded at the points, and also the margins towards the 

 base of the three inner ones, with pale soft woolly hairs. Stamens six, 

 inserted into the baSe of the perianth, the filaments half as long as the 

 perianth, contracted and downy at the base, thin and dilated upwards, 

 with a slender point. Anthers large, yellow, erect. Stigma sessile, 

 thick, acutely triangular. Capsule oblong, three angled, three celled, 

 many seeded, the ieeds flat in two rows, close pressed one upon another. 

 The plant is also increased from the bulb, by lis putting out long 

 underground stems, which form a bulb at the extremity, and thus at 

 some distance from the parent plant its progeny springs up. 



Habitat. — Chalky and sandy districts, especially in Norfolk, Suffolk, 

 Herefordshire, and Middlesex. Plentiful in Nottingham meadows, but 

 the bulbs are mostly too deep in the soil to produce flowers. Near 

 Hamilton and Brechin, and at Bennie Craig, Firth of Forth, Scotland. 



Perennial ; flowering in April. 



This is readily distinguished from the common Garden Tulip by the 

 points of the perianth being hairy, its hairy filaments, and its simple 

 obtuse stigma. Of the common Garden Tulip, T. Gesneriana, there 

 are many hundred varieties of all shades and mixtures of colours, 

 much care, trouble, and labour, being sometimes bestowed upon its 

 growth and cultivation ; indeed the rage at one time for them was 

 such as to have obtained for it not inaptly the term of Tulipamania, 

 and the bulbs of some varieties were valued at such an enormous 

 price, as not unfrequently to be bought and sold at upwards of 

 £500 each ; in fact they became the medium of a species of com- 

 mercial gambling of the Dutch in the 17th and 18lh centuries. Still 

 we can with the poet Kleist say — 



" Who thus, O Tulip ! thy gay painted breast, 

 In all the colours of the sun hath drest ? 



