The Genus Tulipa

The Genus Tulipa is the most complete survey of tulip species to date. Each species is illustrated Diana Everett, with accompanying colour photographs of the plants in habitat and distribution maps. The high level of detail provided in this book makes identification possible for the many species of tulips. Additional material includes check lists of tulip species and their synonyms, as well as country by country check list; glossary with diagrams; information on nurseries selling tulips; and full bibliography.

Species tulips are the ancestors of the garden hybrids described in the final chapter, and this full account will help gardeners refine their growing skills and enhance their enjoyment of tulips as a whole."--BOOK JACKET.

Inspired by seventeenth and eighteenth-century botanical engravings, photographer Christopher Baker set out to revisit the beauty and detail of these drawings in a different medium. With camera in tow, he spent eight months in the bulb fields of Holland, photographing the most outstanding cultivated and species tulips. Working with renowned bulb expert and grower Willem Lemmers, who hand-picked and approved every tulip photographed, Christopher Baker was able to capture each flower at the peak of its perfection. The result is an art book with a mission: Exquisite to look at, Tulipa, is also the ultimate authority on cultivated and species tulips. Mr. Lemmers, a third-generation bulb grower, tells the stories behind five hundred tulips: their parentage and origins, and the growers who bred them. Each tulip profile includes the tulip's registered name and synonyms, a description of its characteristics, and its suitability for the garden and for forcing. Mr. Lemmers also provides a definitive and up-to-date explanation of the most recent classification of tulips, as well as a look at the classification system's fascination four-hundred-year history. The volume contains more than three hundred photographs organized by growing season from early- to late-flowering. Chosen for their importance as superb specimens of the tulip's form and characteristics, these portraits show the diversity, range, and sublime charms of the flower that has obsessed nations. This exploration of the magical, sensuous, awe-inspiring tulip is a must-have for collectors, gardeners, armchair enthusiasts, and art lovers alike.

A long time ago, you could only find them on the slopes of remote mountain ranges in Asia, but today they are the very symbol of modern genetics, a species unrivalled for the variety of colors and forms that breeders can create: tulips. In this book, Celia Fisher traces the story of this important and highly popular plant, from its mountain beginnings to its prevalence in the gardens of Mughal, Persian, and Ottoman potentates; from its migration across the Silk Road to its explosive cultivation in the modern European world. Fisher looks at how tulips’ intensely saturated color has made them an important species for botanists and gardeners. Initially rare in sixteenth century Netherlands, tulips sparked such frenzy among aristocratic collectors that they caused the first economic bubble and collapse. Exploring the ways cultivators have created one hybrid after another—in an astonishing range of colors and shapes—Fisher also shows how tulips have inspired art and literature throughout the centuries, from Ottoman Turkey to the paintings of the Dutch Masters, from Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Black Tulip to contemporary artist David Cheung painting them atop pages of the Financial Times. Stunningly illustrated, this book offers a unique cultural history of one of our most important flowers.

This text is a taxonomic source for the genus with information on the botanic species in the genus centres.

A revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling classic Anna Pavord's now classic, internationally bestselling sensation, The Tulip, is not a gardening book. It is the story of a flower that has driven men mad. Greed, desire, anguish and devotion have all played their part in the development of the tulip from a wild flower of the Asian steppes to the worldwide phenomenon it is today. No other flower carries so much baggage; it charts political upheavals, illuminates social behaviour, mirrors economic booms and busts, plots the ebb and flow of religious persecution. Why did the tulip dominate so many lives through so many centuries in so many countries? Anna Pavord, a self-confessed tulipomaniac, spent six years looking for answers, roaming through eastern Turkey and Central Asia to tell how a humble wild flower made its way along the Silk Road and eventually took the whole of Western Europe by storm. Sumptuously illustrated from a wide range of sources, this irresistible volume has become a bible, a unique source book, a universal gift and a joy to all who possess it. This beautifully redesigned edition features a new Preface by the author, a revised listing of the best varieties of this incomparable flower to choose for your garden and a reorganised listing of tulip species to reflect the latest thinking by taxonomists.