Jun 9, 2012
Please, judge this book by its cover.
Dongen tells the story of the tulip from ancient times, when the tulip was first admired as early as the 1050s in the area of what is now China, Tibet and Russia. Tulips are also mentioned frequently in Arabic and Persian poetry.
The tulip was once a greatly desired plant. In the 1520s gardens devoted purely to tulips first appeared in Europe and tulip bulbs were introduced to the French court, where they became highly fashionable flowers. By 1630 there were 300 florists in Istanbul trading tulip bulbs. By 1636 tulips traders made the current equivalent