THE INTRODUCTION OF THE TULIP, AND THE TULIPOMANIA. 21 



well, as they should be, her outer leaves a little open, as they should be ; 

 the white ornamented leaves are absolutely perfect, she is the chosen of 

 the chosen." Now although nothing is said as to which flower is 

 described, Von Diez, quite rightly, thinks that only Tulips can be meant. 

 The flower described would be termed nowadays a ' Bybloemen,' and, as the 

 author enumerates no fewer than 1,323 varieties, although the full 

 description is given of 74 only, one can form an estimate of the many 

 varieties of the Tulip under cultivation in those days. Von Diez further 

 draws attention to the twenty rules of beauty detailed by Lalezari, which 

 corresponded with those of Europe with one exception. The perfect 

 Turkish Tulip, according to Lalezari, had pointed petals on the 4 to 6 

 scale ; the Western taste of that time, however, demanded a possible 

 rounded form of petal. It seems that the Tulips originally exported from 

 the Turks all had pointed petals. All the varieties illustrated by Clusius 

 are of this form, and of the illustrations in the works of Parkinson, 

 Langlois and Passeus, but very few are to be found with rounded petals, in 

 striking contrast to the demand made by fashion in the second half of the 

 seventeenth century. Von Diez deduces that these Turkish rules were 

 adhered to at the time of the importation of Tulips into Europe, and have 

 been accepted by Europeans. But his contention is not supported by the 

 writings in the eighteenth century manuscripts of Lalezari, and inasmuch 

 as the Tulip was cultivated in Europe at the end of the seventeenth 

 century, it is possible that a retrospective action towards the Turks was 

 effected ; in other words, that the Turks copied from the Europeans the 

 ways and means of identifying the points of beauty, and the classification 

 of the plants, but it is extremely unlikely that a Turk should have copied 

 anything from a disbeliever, and moreover Lalezari refers to former 

 connoisseurs of flowers who prohibited the watering of Tulips until the 

 growth was well above the ground, and describing the Narcissus he says 

 some of the old teachers had laid it down that it was necessary to lift the 

 yellow Narcissus every third year. This confirms that he had researched 

 in older Turkish writings of which we do not know, and that he draws 

 his conclusions from old Turkish grounds, and from these he obtained 

 the names, and recognized points of beauty. 



It is possible that the nomenclature and rules of beauty developed 

 in an analogous way. Certainly before the importation of the Turkish 

 flowers into Europe they were unknown, and at the time of Busbequius 

 the Tulip was held in high esteem by the Turks. These rules of beauty 

 apply only to the florist's or Amateur's Tulips known as ' Breeders ' (self 

 colours), ' Bizarres ' (those with a yellow ground lined or marked with 

 purple and scarlet of different shades), ' Bybloemens ' (having a white 

 ground lined or marked with violet or purple of different shades), and 

 1 Roses' (those marked or striped with rose, scarlet, crimson, or cherry 

 colour on a white ground), and they have been dealt with in two excellent 

 papers which have been published in the Journal of our Society, one 

 by Rev. F. D. Horner,* and one by Mr. A. D. Hall, f 



Seeds sown from either of these four classes of Tulips produce 

 invariably self colours, which after an indefinite period "break" or 



* Vol. xv., 1893. 



f Vol. xxvii., 1902. 



