The Wild and Run-wild Tulips of Europe—By Wilhelm Miller, 
New 
York 
THE SHOWY FLOWERS THAT WILL LAST INDEFINITELY IN THE GRASS, MULTIPLY WITHOUT CARE AND 
LOOK LIKE WILD FLOWERS— WE SHOULD USE THEM BY THE THOUSAND FOR GORGEOUS NEW EFFECTS 
VERY visitor to the Mediterranean 
region naturally gets the mistaken 
notion that the common garden tulips are 
native to Europe, because they have grown 
wild about Florence for centuries. And 
every student who consults the great Index 
Kewensis gets the erroneous impression that 
there are many other species of tulips native 
to Europe. On the contrary the showy 
tulips of European fields have all run wild 
from gardens, and the only species really 
native to Europe are so few that anyone may 
understand them in two moments. 
THE FOUR SPECIES NATIVE TO EUROPE 
The only tulip that grows wild north of the 
Alps is the wood tulip (Tulipa sylvestris), 
a yellow flower which I should hke to see 
naturalized by the thousand on every great 
estate in America. It would be more like 
a wild flower than the showier tulips because 
the petals are only two inches long and 
sharp instead of rounded as the garden tu- 
lips are. The old writers are silent about its 
fragrance, but modern dealers (who offer 
it as a synonym of T. Florentina) declare it 
has the odor of violets. 
In the wild the flower is flushed with green 
outside, which makes it all the more suitable 
for woodland planting. It is “scarcely to 
be seen,” says Burbidge, “until its gold 
stars open sweet and showy in the sun.” 
This dainty wood flower is quite hardy in 
New England, but it may not bloom freely 
Red and white Duc Van Thols (7, suaveolens), which 
bloom early 
the first year or until it feels at home. The 
bulbs cost onlytwocents each by the hundred. 
The Southern representative of the wood 
tulip is 7. australis, which is also a yellow 
flower, but red outside instead of green. I 
fancy that it would bloom in March in the 
Carolinas. Though smaller, it is gayer 
than the northern form, and the bulbs cost 
about four times as much. This and the 
next three species should be tried in rock 
gardens by Northern connoisseurs. 
T. Kaufmanniana, a pink and white tulip that 
blooms a month ahead of most others 
The most exquisite of the European tulips 
is the lady tulip (T. Clusiana), because of its 
unique color scheme. Fancy a flower that 
is white inside, flushed red outside, and then 
add a pure violet eye! It grows only eight 
inches high and the blossom is only two and 
a half inches across when open, but the 
effect is irresistible. Though the lady tulip 
has been loved and cultivated ever since 1636 
and though it is widely spread in nature, it 
has never produced any marked variation 
from this clear-cut type. And the bulbs 
are equally unmistakable because of their 
thick blanket of wool which protrudes like 
the neck of a “sweater.” These bulbs, 
according to Barr, should be planted six to 
nine inches deep among stones and roots 
of other plants, and they are said to hate rich 
soil. 
It is hard to believe that in Europe, every 
foot of which has been traversed many times 
by eager botanists, two flowers as conspicuous 
as Tulipa Orphanidea and Hageri should 
have lain undiscovered until 1862 and 1874 
respectively, especially as the latter grows 
not far from Athens. The former is an 
orange flower two inches long, and both 
have a conspicuous black eye. From the 
fact that they have been found only in the 
mountains of Greece, one is tempted to 
suppose that they may be only garden tulips 
that have escaped to the mountains and 
adapted themselves to wild life. This 
would easily explain their smaller flowers, 
sharp petals and black eyes, and possibly 
even the tuft of hairs at the base of their 
58 
filaments (for we might regard this as a 
natural outgrowth for the protection of the 
delicate pistil against mountain frosts). 
But the total absence of hairs inside the bulb 
coat goes dead against this theory, since 
the higher the altitude the greater the need 
of wool. For such interesting species one 
should not begrudge thirty-five cents a bulb. 
THE PROTOTYPE OF GARDEN TULIPS 
Practically all the important garden 
tulips are derived from Tulipa Gesneriana, 
an Asiatic species which has produced a 
far wider range of colors than any other. 
Moreover, it is one of the few species that 
naturally have the petals rounded at the 
tip instead of sharp pointed. Not all of 
the earliest pictures show round-petaled 
tulips, but one of the first things the Dutch- 
men did when they began seed-sowing about 
1591 was to preserve the varieties with the 
broadest and roundest petals since these 
combined to make a perfect cup and there- 
for a showier flower. For the same reason 
they neglected the varieties with stellate 
or starry flowers, i. e., those which showed 
daylight between the petals. Arbitrary as 
this may sound, you would do the same thing 
yourself if you were to raise new varieties, 
for the tendency is irresistible in floriculture. 
In all important flowers, the rounding of 
the petals has come to be a sure sign of 
improvement on the part of man. 
On the other hand, a reaction against this 
process is always present. Almost every- 
body rebels at the first intimation that flowers 
can, or ought to be, “improved.” Ameri- 
cans particularly are quick to condemn 
. Billietiana, the most glorious yellow tulip for 
naturalizing. It has a three-inch flower 
