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 1 as described by Nash.* 
The varieties Cottage Maid, La Reine, Rose Grisdelin, Crim- 
son King, Chrysolora and Grand Duc 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 whi 
necessitated the purchase of bulbs of other varieties. No bulbs 
of Cottage Maid were planted in the conservatory court in 1915» 
but a larger number of Rose Grisdelin were planted. br 
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. 1 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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