8 Interesting Things About Tulips

When most people think of tulips, the first thing that may jump to their mind is their amazing beauty and that spring is on its way. Well, with less than a month to go, to celebrate the return of spring in Australia, here are eight interesting facts you probably didn’t know about tulips.  Aside from being exceptional beautiful flowers, Tulips are quite a unique floral species and have a fairly crazy history!

      1. Tulips can be used for cooking!

That’s right, like a lot of other flowers, tulips are edible. Tulips can replace onions in a huge variety of recipes as well as be used to make wine. Tulips and tulip breads were given to people who were unable to afford other foods throughout WW2 and the great depression!

      2. How they got their name…

The name ‘Tulip’ was given to them by the shape of their bulb. The word tulip comes from the Persian word ‘delband’ which means turban, much like their awesome shape!

3. Tulip Mania!

Tulip Mania refers to an era in Golden Dutch Age, were the tulip market rose to ridiculously high proportions to which it later crashed. In fact, this event was one of the fist unforeseen market bubbles to occur in history!

4. A single tulip was once worth more than a diamond!

It’s true! At the peak of Tulip Mania, from the years 1634-1637 the price of single tulip was astonishingly high, said to be about 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman in those days!

5. Holland’s treasure.

This one may not come as a huge surprise, but Holland is the largest grower and exporter of Tulips in the world. They grow and export roughly three billion bulbs a year!

6. A massive variety of Tulips…

Most people don’t know that to date, there are more than 75 recognised species of the flower and over 3000 varieties have been discovered!   

7. They can be bloomed early.

Another fun fact most people don’t know is that Tulips are capable of blooming early. Simply store the flower in an extremely cold climate, such as a refrigerator, for up to 12 weeks in which they will be forced into blooming early!

8. Symmetrical beauty.

Aside from their amazing colours and incredible shape, another amazing fact about these fantastic flowers is that the bulb on most of the varieties is almost perfectly symmetrical.

Still finding it hard to believe that a single tulip was probably worth more than your salary back then? Well, at least you have that fact and seven more to love and appreciate this awesome flower more than you already do!