In 1636, you could have made a lot of money with silk tulips
The tulip was introduced to Europe in 1554, and by the late 1500s had become extremely popular in the Netherlands, which was then called the United Provinces. As the popularity of tulips grew, so did the price. This was especially true of tulips that had been affected by a virus that turned them very pretty colors. Tulip breaking virus is a mosaic virus, and causes exotic coloring of the petals. Growing diseased tulips takes a long time, and it took many trials to develop attractive, non-dead tulips (they were using a virus after all). In 1636, the tulip market took off. Common tulips were selling for an entire year’s salary, and rare tulips went for much more. Without any warning, prices plummeted in February of 1637, and tulip prices returned to earlier prices. This is generally considered the first documented economic bubble, and is known as tulip mania.
Luckily for fans of the tulip, like my mom, it remained popular, but for a cheaper price. The Tulipa genus has many species in an array of colors, most of which we have here at Shinoda’s. When I look through Botanica and see all of the beautiful reds, oranges, yellows, and other colors I can’t distinguish as well, I can see what all those Dutch folks got worked up about in the 1600s. Now we get to have all of the tulip with none of the mania.
-Chris
Botanica provided some information about tulip mania and lots of great pictures of less maniacal tulips. Botanica can usually be found on my desk or under something I just put on top of it.
And thanks to wikipedia for providing background about tulip mania. Where would we be without you? Wikipedia can be found on the internet at www.wikipedia.org