The Dutch footballplayer Ruud Gullits nickname was 'The Black Tulip'?
Specialists who breed flowers with specific characteristics are called 'hybridizers'?
New tulips originate in two ways: through spontaneous mutation or through crossbreeding by hybridizers?
It takes 15 to 20 years to produce saleable bulbs?
It takes 5 years of crossbreeding (research, planting in boxes and pots; planting in the field...) before you see the first flowering bulb?
There are 3000 different tulips with 3000 officially registered tulip names (but still no BLACK tulip)?
Dutch hybridizers do have achieved some VERY, VERY deep purples, like the Queen of Night, Black Parrot and the Black Diamond.
The quest to create the mysterious 'black tulip' has caught the imagination of many historians and novelists like Alexandre Dumas, the writer of the romantic intrigue: 'The Black Tulip'?
FASHION BULB
Did you know that...
Flower themes change as quickly as fashiontrends?
The hot colors for a season are dictated by the fashiondesigners?
Valentino swears by dark flowers like the black tulip?
Yves Saint Laurents favourite flowers are dark coloured orchids?
Giorgio Armani likes all flowers, as long as they're white?
Hyacinths are known for their nice spring perfume?
Hyacinths became the symbol of style and elegance after Madam Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV and trendsetter of the 18th century French elite, ordered to fill the gardens of Versailles with Dutch Hyacinths?
The ancient Romans believed that the first milk-white lily spontaneously grew when the milk that spilled from the breast of goddess mama Juno, fell to earth?
Later in Western Europe, the white lily became the symbol of chastity and innocence?
There's a lily that's named after another Donna, namely 'Madonna' and that this lily is a popular ingredient for perfume?
FAMOUS BULB
Did you know that...
The tulip is a little less Dutch than you probably thought? It's first discovered in the steppe of Central Asia and first seen by Europeans in Turkey!
The first tulips in Holland were planted at the University of Leiden in 1593?
During the Tulipomania period (1636-1637) the rich Dutch were willing to pay over the price of a luxurious canal house for one tulip bulb?
At the end of the Tulipomania period (1636-1637) flowerbulb-growers didn't actually sell tulip bulbs, but options guaranteeing the future delivery of the tulip bulb?
The tulip that particularly sparked Tulipomania was the Rembrandt tulip?
The source of the nicely flamed colors of the Rembrandt tulip was actually a virus, called the Mosaic virus?
The Rembrandt tulip is never painted by Rembrandt?
The famous gardens of Keukenhof host 7 million planted bulbs?
Holland produces approximately 10 billion flower bulbs per year?
