60 
¢ Precox 
Billieliana 
ll} | 
\s 
Planijolia Oculus-solis 
The wilder tulips have the dark central eye, which has been bred out of the garden varieties. 
This shows the shapes and markings of the petals 
have pointed petals. 
it from the untamed red or other solid 
color of the petals. In others, the six spots 
are small but shaped with such geometrical 
precision that they range themselves in the 
heart of the flower like a circle of gems. 
Others, of course, are muddy in color or 
uncertain in form, and the first rain is likely 
to bedraggle this wild beauty, but Iam sure 
we can forgive the absence of technical 
perfection in consideration of the immense 
gain if we can make the most splendid of all 
spring flowers as much at home in every 
American landscape as is the orange day 
lily, another exotic, along our country 
roadsides. 
The most interesting of all these black- 
eyed tulips is the Sun’s-eye (Z. Oculus- 
solis), because it is the oldest. Although 
not formally described as a species until 
1808, this gorgeous red flower with a black 
eye was known to the Italians as early as 
1601 by the name of Ochio di sole. In 
explaining this name, Clusius said that the 
flower has a black or bluish black spot 
surrounded by a yellow circle which suggests 
aneye. But why swn’s eye I cannot imagine, 
except in the same poetical sense that the 
daisy is the “day’s eye.” 
Although this Sun’s-eye has been found 
wild in France, Italy, and Switzerland and 
has been cultivated more or less for over 
three hundred years, I dare not recommend 
it for lavish planting, even if the bulbs cost 
only three dollars a hundred, for the only 
kind I have seen under this name in the trade 
is a worthless flower compared with the 
original. Moreover, the trade recommends 
it for the rockery, a pretty sure sign that 
it requires extra good drainage. You can 
tie to this —the true Oculus-solis ought to 
have flowers three inches long, and the 
original form had woolly hairs all over 
the inside of the outer bulb coat. 
This wool is, indeed, the main botanical 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
Mauriana 
Pletystigma 
Didieri 
Fransoniana 
They also 
reason for considering the Sun’s-eye and 
its close relative T. precox as separate 
species from the garden tulips, for in 7. 
Gesneriana there are few hairs except at 
the base of the bulb. But I cannot make 
the hairiness of the bulb the all-important 
character that Baker does for discrimi- 
nating species of tulips. The wooly- 
bulbed tulips of the mountains tend to 
lose their hairiness when cultivated in 
Holland, and conyersely the garden. tulips 
tend to assume hairiness of bulb when they 
escape to the wild. 
Two other red tulips with black eyes date 
from 1823 and 1858 respectively, viz. 
| 
S| 
L 
T. sylvestris, sold as Florentina odorata. A yellow 
flower that holds its own in wood or meadow 
SEPTEMBER, 1908 
T. maleolens and planifolia, but as they would 
cost twenty to thirty dollars a hundred in this 
country, they are only for collectors. The 
former gets its name from its faintly unpleas- 
* ant smell; the latter was found wild in the 
Alps. The horticultural distinctions between 
all these dark-eyed tulips are here indicated 
by drawings from the original pictures, but, 
however delightful they may be in real life, 
it must be confessed that these eye-markings 
are too unstable to be of any importance as 
botanical characters. I cannot see that the ~ 
great botanist Jordan had the slightest 
excuse for describing all the tulips of the 
Alps as separate species. I am familiar 
with the botanical differences between all 
the tulips mentioned in this article, but I 
cannot accept as species flowers known only 
in cultivated fields, and all these differences 
seem to me only such as one would naturally 
expect to find in garden tulips that have 
escaped from cultivation. 
In 1. Fransoniana, we get a ioveln cerise- 
rose with a large violet-black centre which 
is edged with white. 
The fifth and wildest of these black-eyed 
tulips was called T. strangulata, “from the 
unexpanded flower in which the tips of the 
petals cross each other as if a ligature had 
been applied below.” This description will 
bring vividly to the mind of every tulip lover 
the peculiar beauty of a flower with reflexed 
petals. Every visitor to my tulips last 
spring exclaimed with delight at the first 
glimpse of a reflexed flower, yet nothing is 
more odious to a Dutchman. The plant 
breeder wants a tulip with straight pet- 
als because it is more symmetrical and 
stately. But for wild gardening nothing 
can be more appropriate than these reflexed 
tulips. 
The oldest of these reflexed tulips are the 
four varieties found» growing wild near 
Florence in 1837, which pass under the name 
of strangulata. The cheapest variety is 
primrose flushed with rose, which will 
probably cost five cents a bulb, by the 
hundred, on this side of the Atlantic, but 
even then it is 100 per cent. cheaper than 
the favorite reflexed tulips of the day, viz. 
elegans (red) and retroflexa (yellow). The 
latter are generally classed as “ cottage tulips” 
from their unknown origin, but I see no 
reason why they should not be used for 
naturalizing by the wealthy. 
TWO BLUE-EYED BEAUTIES 
Why in the world we do not have a blue 
tulip surpasses my understanding, for there 
are plenty of tulips with clear blue eyes 
having little or no trace of purple. 
If there is any blue-eyed tulip more 
gorgeous than the red-flowered 7. Didieri, 
I should like to know what it is, and strangely 
enough Didieri is quoted as so cheap that 
I dare not write the price for fear that there 
may be some mistake. Every owner of a 
country estate can afford five hundred bulbs 
of it this fall and I should advise him to get 
five hundred of its pure white variety also, 
for this seems to be the cheapest and best 
white tulip for naturalizing. An Irish 
bulb grower has lately produced about a 
