22 JOUKNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



change into the colours of one of the three groups, Bizarre, Bybloemen, 

 or Eose. This character of the Tulip has no floral parallel, and at 

 present no scientific explanation has been offered. Tulips are now 

 seldom grown from seeds, as the process although interesting is tedious, 

 taking usually ten years before definite results are obtained, and we are 

 continually getting new and good varieties from the bulbs themselves, 

 which produce spontaneously blooms of more or less the same character 

 but entirely different, either rectified or self-coloured. Two well known 

 varieties from the early flowering class, single * La Reine' and double 

 1 Murillo ' illustrate this. From ' La Reine ' we have a yellow, 1 Herman 

 Schlegel ' or ' Primrose Queen ' ; a pink, ' Rose La Reine ' ; a deep rose, 

 ' Reine des Reines ' ; a white, ' White Hawk ' ; and further from ' White 

 Hawk,' ' Red Hawk ' ; ' Flamingo,' pink ; ' Ibis,' deep rose ; and ' Callipso,' 

 cream. From ' Murillo,' which is itself a pale pink, has arisen a yellow 

 * Tea Rose ' or 'Primrose Beauty'; 'Harlequin,' striped; a pure white, 

 ' Purity ' or 1 Schoonoord ' ; ' Paeony White ' ; ' Meister van der Hoef,' 

 pure yellow ; and a dark rose and a mauve, which are as yet unnamed. 

 On our farm last season was noticed in a bed of ' Tournesol ' a pure 

 yellow of that variety. 



One of the most remarkable variations arising in the Tulip is a form 

 of atavism which occurs in all kinds of garden Tulips, but especially in 

 Parrot Tulips. Occasionally a specimen will lose its character and revert 

 to a form of Tulip with narrow flowers ; these have no commercial value 

 and are at once destroyed, but from a scientific point of view they are of 

 the greatest interest. This Tulip is known in Holland as ' Tulipa dief,' 

 or Thief Tulip (fig. 2), probably because it replaces one of some value ; the 

 two forms are a deep rose, and a red with yellow border. These have been 

 planted and are found to be constant. The conspicuous characteristic lies 

 in their pointed petals. The first leaf of the largest offset develops in a 

 curved form, that is, the tip of the leaf is elongated into a runner which 

 drives horizontally into the soil and to which is attached an offset. The 

 character of the bulb itself is entirely changed to that of an angular form, 

 similar to the bulb of an unbloomed Parrot Tulip, but lighter in colour. 

 I think this similarity between the bulb of the Parrot Tulip and that of 

 the 'Tulipa dief,' rather than the Parrot Tulip being subject to atavism, 

 explains their frequent appearance among the Parrot Tulips. Parrot 

 Tulips have either a red or a yellow ground, the latter therefore belonging 

 to the ' Bizarre ' group. That Parrot Tulips are a sport from the late 

 Amateur Tulips has been proved recently at Haarlem, where a fine late 

 Tulip produced unexpectedly a Parrot Tulip of the same colour.* 



The late Amateur Tulips more especially ' Roses ' and ' Bybloemen ' 

 were among those most sought for and purchased for such large sums at 

 the height of the Tulipomania. The many anecdotes relating to this 

 remarkable mania are well known, and have been copied and possibly 

 enlarged upon by one writer from another, and need not be mentioned 

 here. How or when the mania commenced we do not know, for to find 

 the time with certainty it is necessary to discern where fair trading ends 

 and speculation commences. Munting, in his " Beschrijven der Kruyden," 

 places the dates as 1634-1637, but M. Van Damme has written to me 

 * Florilegium Harlemense, Tab. 53. 



