18 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE INTRODUCTION OF THE TULIP, AND THE 

 TULIPOMANIA. 



By Mr. W. S. Mukeay, F.R.H.S. 



[Read March 9, 1909.] 



During the preparation of this paper on the introduction of the Garden 

 Tulip into Europe and the subsequent craze or gamble in the seventeenth 

 century, I have had the privilege of consulting the magnificent library 

 belonging to Mr. Krelage, and at the outset I take the opportunity of 

 thanking him for his kindness and courtesy in allowing me free access 

 to it. 



The first mention of the introduction of the Garden Tulip into 

 England is made by Richard Hakluyt, who, in 1582, in his "Remem- 

 brances of Things to be Endeavoured at Constantinople," says : " And now 

 within these four years there have been brought into England from 

 Vienna in Austria divers kinds of flowers called Tulipas, and these and 

 others procured thither a little before from Constantinople by an excellent 

 man called M. Carolus Clusius." 



Hakluyt was, however, wrong in attributing the honour of introducing 

 the Tulip from the Levant to Clusius. 



When Augerius Ghislenius Busbequius, the Ambassador of the 

 Emperor Ferdinand I. to the Sultan, was travelling to Constantinople in 

 the year 1554, he saw tbis flower for the first time in a garden between 

 Adrianople and Constantinople. The most remarkable passage in his 

 letters on his journey reads as follows : "As we passed, we saw everywhere 

 abundance of flowers, such as the Narcissus, Hyacinths, and those called 

 by the Turks Tulipan, not without great astonishment on account of the 

 time of the year, as it was then the middle of winter, a season unfriendly 

 to flowers. Greece abounds with Narcissus and Hyacinths, which have a 

 remarkably fragrant smell ; it is indeed so strong as to hurt those that are 

 not accustomed to it. The Tulipan, however, have little or no smell, but 

 are admired for their beauty and variety of colour. The Turks pay great 

 attention to the cultivation of flowers, nor do they hesitate, though by no 

 means extravagant, to expend several aspers for one that is beautiful. I 

 received several presents of these flowers, which cost me not a little." * 

 The assertion that the Turks call the flower Tulipan is founded upon 

 a misunderstanding, as the only Turkish name for Tulip is " Lale." 

 The interpreter to Busbequius may have described the flower as being 

 similar to the Turkish headgear, the fez, which is the shape of a cup. 

 "Dubbend " is a Persian word for Nettle-Cloth, such as the Turks use as 

 a fez, and from which Europeans derive the word turban. 



Some few years later, in 1559, Conrad Gesner saw the first Garden 

 Tulips that were grown outside Turkey growing in a garden at Ausburg, 



* Biisbequii Ep. Basiliae, 1740, p. 36. 



