Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter Everyone!






A little fact blog for you today.
Tulips are originally from the area of the world I'm currently in. The flowers are indigenous to Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, and other parts of Central Asia. I know what you're thinking: Well then how did they end up in Western Europe?
The most widely accepted story is that the bulbs were given to the Ambassador for Ferdinand I as a gift from Suleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire (that's Turkey, people!) in 1554. Then a botanist named Carolus Clusius met the Ambassador in Vienna (which is not where the ambassador's from.. go figure!) and upon seeing the beautiful flowers decided to take them and make them ridiculously popular (see TULIPMANIA). Thus, Holland has tulips. Tonnes of 'em.

You can all sleep safe now knowing the true origin of the mighty tulip!
-Maeghan

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Love love love the tulips and the building in the background of the first picture.

p.s. current password is ticket in turkish.

Linda said...

The tulips are lovely! Everything here is still yellow...at least where I live it is. Then I go downtown and I already see green. What?! The stupid yellow park outside my house is so slow. I want to tell the park to hurry up! If only that had some effect.

I love that wikipedia has everything.

Jayden said...

tulips! That are sooooooo many here:P:P

Jayden said...

i meant there. *there are so many here

Kathleen said...

So pretty!!!! I love flowers. There were lots of daffodils in New York!