Tulips: Living, Ephemeral Luxury That Attracts Tourists and Fuels the Economy

Four unopened white tulips, rescued from a florist’s unsellable flowers, became the centerpiece of a dinner. Their simple arrangement also opened the door to a much larger story about beauty, status and desire.

The florist keeps ready-made bouquets arranged by color and charges according to their size and the flowers they contain. Lilies and ranunculuses, sold by the stem, can quickly make up the price of an entire bouquet. On this visit, the florist wrapped four white tulips as a small gift. Placed in two separate vases, they looked striking on their own.

Tulips reached the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century, arriving from the Ottoman courts as the country entered its Golden Age through maritime trade. Their silky petals and precise geometry came from a flower native to the steppes of Central Asia. In the Calvinist republic, where sobriety held a certain appeal, the tulip appeared as an aesthetic provocation: living, aristocratic and temporary luxury that ambitious burghers dreamed of planting in their gardens.

The first recorded tulip to bloom in the Netherlands appeared in 1594, when the Renaissance botanist Carolus Clusius planted exotic bulbs in the garden of Leiden University, where he lived. The greatest frenzy, however, did not center on the tulip in its natural form. The most coveted varieties, including the legendary Semper Augustus, owed their striking appearance to the quiet work of mosaic virus rather than to an exemplary botanical cross. The flowers may now open fully and lose a little of their identity, but their appeal remains.