96 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



he, also, who truly appreciates the double flower. 

 Nature of herself does not very often double 

 flowers, man invariably doubles every kind he can 

 so soon as he takes it into cultivation. Tulips 

 have been doubled very long, and were at one time 

 much admired, though they are thought less of 

 now. In England, at all events, they meet with 

 comparatively little patronage, excepting a few 

 dwarf sorts used for forcing and for carpet-bedding, 

 and some large white ones which, when wide open, 

 find a place in bouquets and floral trophies, where 

 they look rather like peonies. 



The history of the origin of the tulip as we 

 have it is somewhat lost in mist. Robinson says 

 Tulipa suaveolens from South Russia is now 

 regarded as the type of the numerous early flower- 

 ing tulips {Due van Tholl, etc.), but the finer, later 

 forms, which open in May, have all come from 

 Tulipa Gesneriana. Some of the Dutch growers, 

 on the other hand, regard the Gesneriana as the 

 parent of all the garden forms ; which also seems to 

 be the opinion of some of the eighteenth-century 

 English writers, who give Cappadocia as the home 

 of the bulb. Various native lands have been 

 ascribed to it : Turkey, South Russia, Asia Minor, 

 and what is called " the Levant " — in bulb history 



