Tulip field by Stephan Scheffer

About "Tulip field"

by Stephan Scheffer

About the artwork

Tulip (Tulipa) is a genus of single-seeded plants in the lily family (Liliaceae). Tulips were introduced to the western world by the Viennese ambassador to Turkey, Ogier Gisleen van Busbeke, who wrote about the flowers he had seen in Edirne, Turkey, in 1551. He later sent some of its seeds to Austria.

The arrival of a cargo of tulip bulbs from Turkey in Antwerp in 1562 marked the beginning of European tulip cultivation.[1] The first documented specimens were planted by Carolus Clusius in the Hortus botanicus Leiden, which he ran from 1593. The forest tulip (Tulipa sylvestris) is the only species found in the wild in the Netherlands and became established from the 19th century. Most of the cultivated forms of the tulip are derived from Tulipa gesneriana.

Ottoman sultans wore a tulip on their turban as a symbol. The name tulip thus comes from the Persian word "target band" (دولبند) meaning turban.
Tulips are native to Central Asia, probably from the area that came to be known as Kazakhstan. The genus' range extends from the Iberian Peninsula through North Africa to Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Ukraine, southern Siberia, Mongolia and northwestern China. However, the greatest diversity is found in three mountain ranges in Central Asia: the Pamir, the Tiensyan and Hindu Kush. The climate in these three mountain regions is characterised by a cold winter that allows vernalisation to occur, a long spring with cold nights and a dry summer. Such a climate is ideal for tulips.