|
|
Article: Books about antiques.(history of the tulip)(Review)
- Article from:
- The Magazine Antiques
- Article date:
- April 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The tulip
First the Turks, then the Dutch, and finally the English attempted to coax the wild tulip into their private visions of what they wanted it to be. Their common problem was the perversity of the tulip, which, like the cat, resents being coaxed to do anything it has no mind to do. Tulip seeds take seven years to form a bearing bulb, and there is no telling what sort of variation on the parent flower will emerge. Only offsets--small bulblets that sometimes grow alongside the parent bulb--will produce identical blooms to the parent. The most tantalizing trait of all is the "break"--a bulb that has previously produced a white or yellow tulip, that suddenly ...