24th March: Day of the Tulip

Today is the Day of the tulip in the French Revolutionary Calendar, so here are 10 things you might not know about tulips:

1. Although associated largely with Holland these days, tulips actually originated in Persia, where they started cultivating them in the 10th century. Tulips are mentioned by Omar Kayam and Celaleddin Rûmi.
2. The English word tulip derives ultimately from the Persian word for a turban, because it was common in the Ottoman Empire for people to wear tulips on their turbans. The Persian, Arabic and Turkish word for the flower is laleh, which in Arabic letters contains the same letters as "Allah" and so it is a holy flower.
3. In a Persian legend, a youth, Farhad, fell in love with a maiden named Shirin. When he heard that she had been killed, he was so grief stricken that he mounted his favourite horse and galloped over a cliff to his death. From each drop of Blood a scarlet tulip grew, a symbol of his perfect love.
4. In the 16th century, tulips were a symbol of love. The Sultan of Persia liked to give red tulips to his beloved. These tulips had a black tinge at the bottom of each petal, so to him it symbolised the flame of love burning his heart to black coal. This was a bit too sexual for the Victorians, who hardly ever used them as flowers to give a loved one. In the western language of flowers, red tulips still mean irresistible love. Yellow tulips mean hopeless love, and variegated tulips mean beautiful eyes.
5. Nobody knows for sure, but it's thought the person responsible for introducing the plants to Western Europe was Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq, an ambassador for Emperor Ferdinand I to Suleyman the Magnificent. According to a letter, he saw "an abundance of flowers everywhere; Narcissus, hyacinths and those in Turkish called Lale, much to our astonishment because it was almost midwinter, a season unfriendly to flowers." In 1573 Carolus Clusius planted tulips at the Vienna Imperial Botanical Gardens. He was later to be appointed director of the Hortus Botanicus at Leiden University, and he took some bulbs with him and planted them in late 1593. When these flowers bloomed in 1594, this was taken as the date tulips first appeared in Holland, although it's likely people had them in their private gardens before this.
6. In the 1630s tulips became so popular in Holland that they triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the tulip mania, with hoards of people giving up their jobs to become tulip growers. The bulbs were so expensive then that they were used as currency and traded like stocks and shares. They came to be known as "pot of Gold" and a symbol for the rich, because only the rich could afford them.
7. Tulips belong to the lily family and there are over 100 different species.
8. Even after they are cut, a tulip stem will still grow and bend towards the light.
9. Tulip bulbs are edible. It's said that when the Ambassador of the Roman Empire sent a gift of tulip bulbs and seeds to Clusius in Vienna, he had no idea what they were for. He planted them and when they matured, gave them to his grocer who cooked and ate them with oil and vinegar. In Holland, people ate tulip bulbs during famines. However, if it ever comes to that, don't feed your pets with them. They contain tulipanin which is toxic to Dogs, Cats and Horses.
10. After World War II, Holland sent Ottawa, Canada, thousands of tulip bulbs as a thank you for the Canadian troops who liberated Holland, and also for allowing Queen Maria to reside in Canada during the war.