The tulips and how they used to cost more than house.
ABDULLAH VOON NETHERLANDS BOARD OF TOURISM CONVENTIONS
The Hortus Botanicus in Leiden today has glasshouse for desert plant species. When you’re the largest flower exporter of the world, hosting flower festivals is must!
Holland is famous for its beautiful flower bulb fields that give colour to the typical Dutch landscape. The best-known Dutch flower, of course, is the tulip. In 1593, the first tulip in Holland could only be admired in the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden. Fast forward to today and there are vast fields of tulips and other bulb flowers to enjoy across Holland, from the Bollenstreek to the Noordoostpolder and
Kop van Noord-Holland areas.
Originally cultivated in the Pamir and Tien Shan mountain ranges of Kazakhstan, tulips were imported into Holland in the 16th Century and cultivated by obsessed horticulturists in the Ottoman Empire.
The tulips’ elegant and vivid colours were considered rare and novel by Western Europeans. The famous botanist, Carolus Clusius, was credited for introducing the flower to Holland. His first major book on tulips in 1592 became so popular that his garden was raided and bulbs stolen on regular basis. As the Dutch Golden Age grew, so did this curvaceous and colourful flower. They became popular in paintings and
festivals, and remain so to this day.
Source: MUHIBAH, the Royal Brunei Airlines in-flight magazine, 2017 Jan-Feb, pages 39-42. Text recovered from the scanned page by OCR and lightly corrected; spelling may differ from the printed edition.
