Tulipa, commonly called tulip, is a genus of about 150 species of bulbous flowering plants in the family Liliaceae. The native range of the species includes southern Europe, north Africa, and Asia from Anatolia and Iran in the west to northeast of China. The centre of diversity of the genus is in the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains and the steppes of Kazakhstan. A number of species and many hybrid cultivars are grown in gardens, used as pot plants or as fresh cut flowers. Most of the cultivated species, subspecies and cultivars of tulip are derived from Tulipa gesneriana.
Description
The species are perennials from bulbs, the tunicate bulbs often produced on the ends of stolons and covered with glabrous to variously hairy papery coverings. The species include short low-growing plants to tall upright plants, growing from 10 to 70 centimeters (4–27 in) tall. They can even grow in the cold and snowy winter. Plants typically have 2 to 6 leaves, with some species having up to 12 leaves. The cauline foliage is strap-shaped, waxy-coated, usually light to medium green and alternately arranged. The blades are somewhat fleshy and linear to oblong in shape. The large flowers are produced on scapes or subscapose stems normally lacking bracts. The stems have no leaves to a few leaves, with large species having some leaves and smaller species have none. Typically species have one flower per stem but a few species have up to four flowers. The colorful and attractive cup shaped flowers have three petals and three sepals, which are most often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. The six petaloid tepals are often marked near the bases with darker markings. The flowers have six basifixed, distinct stamens with filaments shorter than the tepals and the stigmas are districtly 3-lobed. The ovaries are superior with three chambers. The 3 angled fruits are leathery textured capsules, ellipsoid to subglobose in shape, containing numerous flat disc-shaped seeds in two rows per locule.
Origin of the name
Although tulips are associated with Holland, both the flower and its name originated in the Ottoman Empire. The tulip, or lale (from Persian لاله, lâleh) as it is called in Turkey, is a flower indigenous to Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and other parts of Central Asia. After being described in a letter by the Dutch ambassador in Turkey in the 16th century, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, who was also a great floral enthusiast, tulips were brought to Europe in the 16th century; the word tulip, which earlier in English appeared in such forms as tulipa or tulipant, entered the language by way of French tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend, "muslin, gauze". (The English word turban, first recorded in English in the 16th century, can also be traced to Ottoman Turkish tülbend.)
Cultivation
Tulips originate from mountainous areas with temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy. They do best in climates with long cool springs and early summers, but they are often grown as spring blooming annual plantings in warmer areas of the world. The bulbs are typically planted in late summer and fall, normally from 10 to 20 cm (4 to 8 in.) deep, depending of the type planted, in well draining soils. In parts of the world that do not have long cool springs and early summers, the bulbs are often planted up to 12 inches deep; this provides some protection from the heat of summer and tends to force the plants to regenerate one large bulb each year instead of many smaller non blooming ones. This can extend the usefulness of the plants in warmer areas a few years but not stave off the degradation in bulb size and eventual death of the plants.
Propagation
Tulips can be propagated through offsets, seeds or micropropagation.Offsets and tissue culture methods are means of asexual propagation, they are used to produce genetic clones of the parent plant which maintains cultivar integrity. Seed raised plants show greater variation, and seeds are most often used to propagate species and subspecies or are used for the creation of new hybrids. Many tulip species can cross pollinate with each other; when wild tulip populations overlap with other species or subspecies, they often hybridize and produce populations of mixed plants. Most tulip cultivars are complex hybrids and sterile; those plants that produce seeds produce offspring very dissimilar to the parents.
In horticulture, tulips are divided up into fifteen groups mostly based on flower morphology and plant size.
Single early group - with cup-shaped single flowers, no larger than 8cm across (3 inches). They bloom early to mid season. Growing 15 to 45cm tall.
Double early group - with fully double flowers, bowl shaped to 8cm across. Plants typically grow from 30-40cm tall.
Triumph group - single, cup shaped flowers up to 6cm wide. Plants grow 35-60cm tall and bloom mid to late season.
Darwin hybrid group - single flowers are ovoid in shape and up to 8cm wide. Plants grow 50-70cm tall and bloom mid to late season. This group should not be confused with older Darwin tulips - which belong in the Single Late Group below.
Single late group - cup or goblet-shaded flowers up to 8cm wide, some plants produce multi-flowering stems. Plants grow 45-75cm tall and bloom late season.
Tulip growers using offsets to produce salable plants need a year or more of growth before plants are large enough to flower; tulips grown from seeds often need five to eight years of growth before plants are flowering size. Commercial growers harvest the bulbs in late summer and grade them into sizes; bulbs large enough to flower are sorted and sold, while smaller bulbs are sorted into sizes and replanted. Holland is the main producer of commercially sold plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually.
