tulip

The tulip was introduced into Europe in 1572. Dutch growers developed many new varieties, resulting in tulip mania in the 1630s, when vast sums were paid for bulbs of rare colours.

Native to the rainforests of west Kenya and Uganda, the African tulip tree (Spathodea campanulata) will grow up to a height of 24 m/80 ft in any tropical region. It is also known as the fountain tree, the fire tree, or the flame-of-the-forest. These names are references to its brilliant scarlet or orange–red flowers, which resemble tulips in shape.

Any of a group of spring-flowering bulbous plants belonging to the lily family, usually with single goblet-shaped flowers on the end of an upright stem and narrow oval leaves with pointed ends. Tulips come in a large range of shapes, sizes, and colours and are widely cultivated as a garden flower. (Genus Tulipa, family Liliaceae.)

T. gesnerana, from which most of the garden cultivars have been derived, probably originated in Asia Minor. It was quickly adopted in Europe from Turkey during the 16th century, and tulip collecting became a craze in 17th-century Holland – it was the subject of a novel, The Black Tulip, by Alexandre Dumas (père) in 1850. Today tulips are commercially cultivated on a large scale in the Netherlands and East Anglia, England.

The tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) of the eastern USA is a member of the magnolia family, with large, tulip-shaped blooms.