The tulip is a member of the lily family, Liliaceae,[2] along with 14 other genera, where it is most closely related to Amana, Erythronium, and Gagea in the tribe Lilieae.

[3] Tulips were originally found in a band stretching from Southern Europe to Central Asia, but since the seventeenth century have become widely naturalised and cultivated (see map).

Tulips are perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes that bloom in spring and die back after flowering to an underground storage bulb.

After seeing the tulip in the garden of Dr. Adriaen Pauw, a director of the new East India Company, Nicolas van Wassenaer wrote in 1624 that "The colour is white, with Carmine on a blue base, and with an unbroken flame right to the top".

With limited specimens in existence at the time and most owned by Pauw, his refusal to sell any flowers, despite wildly escalating offers, is believed by some to have sparked the mania.

[19] Prior to arriving in Europe the Hungarians, and other Finno-Ugrians, embraced the Indo-Iranian cult of the dead, Yima/Yama, and would have been familiar with all of its symbols including the tulip.

[20] Tulips are mainly distributed along a band corresponding to latitude 40° north, from southeast of Europe (Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Southern Serbia, Bulgaria, most part of Romania, Ukraine, Russia) and Turkey in the west, through the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan) and the Sinai Peninsula.

Tulips were brought to Europe by travellers and merchants from Anatolia and Central Asia for cultivation, from where they escaped and naturalised (see map).

[24][8] Botrytis tulipae is a major fungal disease affecting tulips, causing cell death and eventually the rotting of the plant.

[27] The fungus Trichoderma viride can infect tulips, producing dried leaf tips and reduced growth, although symptoms are usually mild and only present on bulbs growing in glasshouses.

Dutch growers would go to extraordinary lengths during tulipomania to make tulips break, borrowing alchemists' techniques and resorting to sprinkling paint powders of the desired hue or pigeon droppings onto flower roots.

[5] Tulips affected by the mosaic virus are called "broken"; while such plants can occasionally revert to a plain or solid colouring, they will remain infected and have to be destroyed.

[8] Early cultivars must have emerged from hybridisation in gardens from wild collected plants, which were then favoured, possibly due to flower size or growth vigour.

[5] A paper by Arthur Baker[34] reports that in 1574, Sultan Selim II ordered the Kadi of A'azāz in Syria to send him 50,000 tulip bulbs.

However, John Harvey[35] points out several problems with this source, and there is also the possibility that tulips and hyacinth (sümbüll), originally Indian spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi) have been confused.

Sultan Selim also imported 300,000 bulbs of Kefe Lale (also known as Cafe-Lale, from the medieval name Kaffa, probably Tulipa suaveolens, syn.

[36] It is also reported that shortly after arriving in Constantinople in 1554, Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, ambassador of the Austrian Habsburgs to the court of Suleyman the Magnificent, claimed to have introduced the tulip to Europe by sending a consignment of bulbs west.

[5] Sultan Ahmet III maintained famous tulip gardens in the summer highland pastures (Yayla) at Spil Dağı above the town of Manisa.

In 1515, the scholar Qasim from Herat in contrast had identified both wild and garden tulips (lale) as anemones (shaqayq al-nu'man) but described the crown imperial as laleh kakli.

[43] In Moorish Andalus, a "Makedonian bulb" (basal al-maqdunis) or "bucket-Narcissus" (naryis qadusi) was cultivated as an ornamental plant in gardens.

[44] Although it is unknown who first brought the tulip to Northwestern Europe, the most widely accepted story is that it was Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq, an ambassador for Emperor Ferdinand I to Suleyman the Magnificent.

[citation needed] It is doubtful that Busbecq could have had the tulip bulbs harvested, shipped to Germany and replanted between March 1558 and Gessner's description the following year.

These curiosities fitted well in an age when natural oddities were cherished especially in the Netherlands, France, Germany and England, where the spice trade with the East Indies had made many people wealthy.

Nouveaux riches seeking wealthy displays embraced the exotic plant market, especially in the Low Countries where gardens had become fashionable.

[49] Between 1634 and 1637, the enthusiasm for the new flowers in Holland triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the tulip mania that eventually led to the collapse of the market three years later.

[citation needed] As with other plants of the lily family, tulips are poisonous to domestic animals including horses, cats, and dogs.

[69] The 12th century Persian tragic romance, Khosrow and Shirin, similar to the tale of Romeo and Juliet, tells of tulips sprouting where the blood of the young prince Farhad spilt after he killed himself upon hearing the (deliberately false) story that his true love had died.

The poem Gulistan by Musharrifu'd-din Saadi, described a visionary garden paradise with "The murmur of a cool stream / bird song, ripe fruit in plenty / bright multicoloured tulips and fragrant roses...".

[citation needed] The tulip is the national symbol for martyrdom in Iran[71] (and Shi'ite Islam generally), and has been used on postage stamps and coins.

The tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is decorated with 72 stained glass tulips, representing 72 martyrs who died at the Battle of Karbala in 680CE.