Botanical Name:Tulipa gesneriana
Family: Liliaceae
Subfamily:Lilioideae
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Liliales
Tribe: Lilieae
Genus: Tulipa
Common Names: Tulip, Didier’s tulip or Garden tulip
Habitat: The origin of this plant could not be found, though it is naturalized in S.W. Europe.(very popular in Holand).It grows in and arround cultivated land.
Description:
Tulip is a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes, dying back after flowering to an underground storage bulb. Depending on the species, tulip plants can be between 10 and 70 cm (4 and 28 inches) high.
Flowers: The tulip’s flowers are usually large and are actinomorphic (radially symmetric) and hermaphrodite (contain both male (androecium) and female (gynoecium) characteristics), generally erect, or more rarely pendulous, and are arranged more usually as a single terminal flower, or when pluriflor as two to three (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica), but up to four, flowers on the end of a floriferous stem (scape), which is single arising from amongst the basal leaf rosette. In structure, the flower is generally cup or star shaped. As with other members of Liliaceae the perianth is undifferentiated (perigonium) and biseriate (two whorled), formed from six free (i.e. apotepalous) caducous tepals arranged into two separate whorls of three parts (trimerous) each. The two whorls represent three petals and three sepals, but are termed tepals because they are nearly identical. The tepals are usually petaloid (petal like), being brightly coloured, but each whorl may be different, or have different coloured blotches at their bases, forming darker colouration on the interior surface. The inner petals have a small, delicate cleft at the top, while the sturdier outer ones form uninterrupted ovals. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colours, except pure blue (several tulips with “blue” in the name have a faint violet hue), and have absent nectaries. Tulip flowers are generally bereft of scent and are the coolest of floral characters. The Dutch regarded this lack of scent as a virtue, as it demonstrates the flower’s chasteness.
Androecium: The flowers have six distinct, basifixed introrse stamens arranged in two whorls of three, which vary in length and may be glabrous or hairy. The filaments are shorter than the tepals and dilated towards their base.
Gynoecium: The style is short or absent and each stigma has three distinct lobes, and the ovaries are superior, with three chambers.
Fruit: The tulip’s fruit is a globose or ellipsoid capsule with a leathery covering and an ellipsoid to globe shape. Each capsule contains numerous flat, disc-shaped seeds in two rows per chamber. These light to dark brown seeds have very thin seed coats and endosperm that does not normally fill the entire seed.
Leaves: Tulip stems have few leaves. Larger species tend to have multiple leaves. Plants typically have two to six leaves, some species up to 12. The tulip’s leaf is cauline (born on a stem), strap-shaped, with a waxy coating, and the leaves are alternate (alternately arranged on the stem), diminishing in size the further up the stem. These fleshy blades are often bluish-green in colour.The bulbs are truncated basally and elongated towards the apex. They are covered by a protective tunic (tunicate) which can be glabrous or hairy inside.
Cultivation:
Easily grown in a sunny position in a well-drained sandy soil with added leafmould. The bulbs are very hardy, surviving soil temperatures down to about -12°c. This is a complicated species, or perhaps a group of very closely related species, some members of which are probably native to Europe. It is a parent of the cultivated garden tulips. The flowers are sweetly scented. Bulbs can be harvested in June after they have died down and then stored in a cool dry place, being planted out again in October.
Edible Uses:
Bulb – cooked. It can be dried and ground into a powder and then mixed with cereals when making bread etc. Some caution is advised, see the notes below on toxicity.
Tulip petals are edible flowers. The taste varies by variety and season, and is roughly similar to lettuce or other salad greens. Some people are allergic to tulips.
Tulip bulbs look similar to onions, but should not generally be considered food. The toxicity of bulbs is not well-understood, nor is there an agreed-upon method of safely preparing them for human consumption. There have been reports of illness when eaten, depending on quantity. During the Dutch famine of 1944–45, tulip bulbs were eaten out of desperation, and Dutch doctors provided recipes
Medicinal Uses: Not known to us.
Other Uses:
Plants have been grown indoors in pots in order to help remove toxins from the atmosphere. It has been shown to help remove formaldehyde, xylene and ammonia
Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip
https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Tulipa+gesneriana
