HORTUS BULBORUM or TREASURY OF HISTORIC BULBS

[ashley]

I would like to hear what others have to say about this.

I have nothing to add to this debate but thank you for this very clear summary Jim.  Continue please.

[Lvandelft]

I would like to hear what others have to say about this.

I think that I will not take part in this discussion, as I don't know much about these things.
But I know that there is a difference between Dutch and English Breeder tulips.
It would take me days of looking about these matters in the Library of KAVB.
By the way, I have seen, that some cultivars are in the Hortus cultivated to sell, but there were only healthy varieties as far as I could see.
But there are (less serious) growers who grow some of these varieties and maybe these are coming into trade too, because there is a demand at the moment.

[Lvandelft]

I know a lot of Forumists enjoy cycling, whether on their own bikes or watching the major events on TV ( I am "busy" folllowing the Giro on TV at the moment!!).... can anyone tell me;  are there any other tulips, or indeed other flowers, which have been named to honour famous cyclists?  Like that tulip, 'Wim van Est' ?

Maggi, I know at the moment only one other cyclist with a tulip name:
Michael Boogerd.
We had three women skating World champions with tulip names

Yvonne van Gennip
Atje Keulen-Deelstra
Stien Baas-Kaiser

Two football player:

Johan Cruijff, who does not know him?
Ruud Gullit very well known in G.B.

I know of George Best there is a Rosa called after him.

Most of the Forumist will have heard of Crocus Ard Schenk,
a famous Dutch skater too.
And we have ofcourse
Alfred Heineken, a yellow tulip with a white edge...

[David Nicholson]

..... and an Auricula 'Kevin Keegan'

[Boyed]

Jim,

thanks a lot for your detail describtions and points. Would you believe or not, if I say that during my 20 year growing experience I have been studying tulips everyday for at least 5 hours a day and this continues until now. I even know tulip register by heart. It is like a drug for me and I keep learning and learning. So what you wrote is familliar to me and I know about how breeders were used, about roses, bibliomens, bizars ets. The thing is that time was changed and it is proved that all this relates with virus. I just thunk that OLD HOUSE GARDENS just make money out of the garbage from Hortus Bulborum and fool naive people under their polite mask. It is just rediculous to pay such amount of money for infected tulips. Ordinary tulips sold in the market, look much more better when catch virus. Just ysterday I had a look at them in my neighbour's garden and should say that they had more beautiful pattenrs. So people who enjoy them just can by ordinary tulips and infect them artificially. But there is no very much need to do it as they can by true Rembrandt tulips, which are virus-free and also avalable in trade by some companies, or modern striped varieties from different groups, though in difference from Rembrandt tulips their stripes have a symmetry.

And finally controdiction:
They say that their goal is to preserve old cultivars and spread them among gardeners. So I don't understand how they preserve them as they sell an infection, which can damage the other healthy tulip cultivars and bulbs grown by these people. They just do the opposite. Just a good way to make profit out of the garbage.

[Boyed]

And I want to make some comments about colour-breaking virus, as it is my profile and I have been studying it for over 15 years, making many experiments and seeing how each variety acts and reacts, when infected.

I grow around 200 tulip cultivars and few bulbs of each new cultivar, which appears in my collection sooner or later is artificially infected with virus for studies. I observe the infected samples every day to see how they develop and change and what kind of symptoms they show.
In some literature it is stated that color-breaking virus doesn’t harm the bulb and only causes color-break. What I see – it is not that true. There are some cultivars, which when infected, grow happily for decades without showing any symptoms of degradation. But there are many, that after few years of catching virus (for example, Triumph “Lustige Witve”) gradually degradate, develop shorter stems, smaller flowers, narrower petals and smaller bulbs. They never produce tip-sized bulbs, when infected. Some cultivars, as DHT “Forgotten Dreams” and many Kaufmanniana cultivars are immune to virus and don’t catch infection, even when artificially infected.

I prepared a very detailed article relating virus, based on my growing experience and tests and placed it in my website to help people grow healthy tulips. I am going to place lots of useful information, relating tulips and make it available for everybody in the near future. Now, for example, I am preparing a very detailed descriptions with all nuances of the tulips, grown in my collection. I notice some mistakes in official descriptions. I hope that this winter the English version also will be ready. Some people even get surprised, that I place this information for free. But that is my aim, and thus I want the gardeners to be well informed about tulip culture, grow healthy and beautiful plants and enjoy them.

[Jim McKenney]

during my 20 year growing experience I have been studying tulips everyday for at least 5 hours a day and this continues until now. I even know tulip register by heart. It is like a drug for me and I keep learning and learning.

Zhirair, your enthusiasm for and knowledge about tulips is obvious. That long post from me about Breeder tulips was not written for you but rather to give others who might be reading these posts (but who are not tulip enthusiasts) some background information. I’m sure you have things to teach me about tulips, and that is why I want to keep this thread going and to encourage your participation.

In an earlier post you mentioned that Tulipa 'Insulinde' is not virus infected. I grow this tulip – it’s still in bloom today in fact. It definitely looks like a virus infected tulip to me. I have no way of proving that, but its overall appearance agrees with what I know about virus infected tulips. The flower itself, beautiful as it is in its strange way, has the deformities I associate with virused tulips.

This makes me wonder: are we talking about the same plant? I’ve attached an image of one bloom for you to see what I grow. What do you think?   

[Jim McKenney]

true Rembrandt tulips, which are virus-free and also available in trade by some companies, or modern striped varieties from different groups, though in difference from Rembrandt tulips their stripes have a symmetry.

Zhirair, something you have been saying is confusing me. You talk about “true Rembrandt tulips”. What are these? I think they might be what I would call "false broken tulips".     

When I was a young man, back in the days when virus infected tulips were still in general commerce, the term Rembrandt tulip was used to describe either broken tulips in general or those broken tulips which did not fit the traditional categories (bizarre, bybloemen and so on). In fact, the term Rembrandt tulip was often used for modern tulips with a striped color pattern which were not virus infected and were not true virus infected (broken)  tulips.

Can you name some cultivars of these “true Rembrandt tulips”?

[Boyed]

Dear Jim,

I will help you to distinguish virus-infected tulips among true Rembrandt tulips, which are virus-free and are even listed in last edition of tulip register. It is not so difficult. One should only have a little experience. Just give me one day to prepare a photo for you to be more clear with descriptions.

I wrote about identifying virus among rembrant tulips in my article about virus, which is in the website, but, unfortunately, it is in Russian so far.

[Boyed]

Jim,

good question!
During tulipmania period when it was discovered that those stripes were caused by a virus, scientists started to revise all the tulips in Rembrandt group and left only the ones, which were genetically striped and virus free. The others were just trashed. True Rembrandt tulips differ from modern striped varieties the way that their patterns don’t have symmetry. Unlike True Rembrandt tulips, modern striped varieties have symmetry in their striped patterns.
To name some true Rambrandt tulips:
‘Absalon’, ‘Gala Beauty’, ‘Insulinda’, ‘Тhe Lizard’.

[Jim McKenney]

To name some true Rambrandt tulips:
‘Absalon’, ‘Gala Beauty’, ‘Insulinda’, ‘Тhe Lizard’.

Zhirair, this is fascinating. In the past I've grown 'Absalon' and I think 'The Lizard'; I currently grow 'Insulinde/Insulinda' and a more recent acquisition of 'Absalon'. I don't know 'Gala Beauty'.

'Absalon' is a very old cultivar, isn't it? Some sources make it hundreds of years old. The plants I had about twenty-five years ago proved to be very unstable: for a year or two they grew very vigorously and then burned out. I have photos of this (from the 1981 season) which I would like to show you, but I don't have a slide scanner. As with my current stocks of 'Insulinde'/'Insulinda', it gave every impression of being virus infected.

[Jim McKenney]

Zhirair, let me try to explain why some people are willing to pay outrageous prices for diseased tulips.

The short answer is that there appears to be no substitute for the real thing. What are currently sold as  “Rembrandt tulips” here in the US are at best crude imitations of the fine old broken tulips and  do not remotely approach their rare, sophisticated beauty; particularly is this true of  the best of the bizarre tulips which are my personal favorites. The modern Rembrandt tulips I have seen are as plastic child’s toys compared to the aged Morocco leather of the old bizarre tulips. 

To be sure, the growing of virus infected tulips is a guilty pleasure: most of us who grow them know better and should probably not grow them. But they are like a drug: once you have succumbed to their peculiar charms, you are hooked for life. These are tulips to be admired individually in the hand, in the cozy, warm comfort of familiar domestic surroundings, as if one were living in a Vermeer painting. Perhaps the glass you hold in your other hand will contain a libation of similar muted, dark hues, layered character and ancient history. Savor each slowly, as their quality deserves. You will look at other tulips as the worldly man looks at the country bumpkin, and perhaps make comments about the rude good health of  these everyday tulips. I’m not saying this is right or admirable, I’m just saying that this is what often happens.
I gladly gave my innocence to these tulips when I was a teenager, and I’ve never regretted it.
I’ve learned to live with the guilt.

[Jim McKenney]

To name some true Rambrandt tulips:
‘Absalon’, ‘Gala Beauty’, ‘Insulinda’, ‘Тhe Lizard’.

Zhirair, I hope you are not getting impatient with all of these questions. But it seems that in some ways your tradition is different than mine, and so I’m not always sure what to make of what you say.

For instance, you gave examples of Rembrandt Tulip cultivars. Your examples only confused me more. Why? Because in my tradition, Rembrandt Tulips are  broken Darwin Tulips. Yet some of the cultivars you give as examples of Rembrandt Tulips are much older than the Darwin Tulip group. How can that be? 

[For those of you who are not tulip enthusiasts, what came to be known as Darwin Tulips arose in the late nineteenth century but seem to have been comparatively little known until the early twentieth century].

Is this seeming inconsistency due to some recent redefinition of the term “Rembrandt Tulip”?  Is it just another example of the flexibility of the group concepts in tulips?

[Lesley Cox]

All this learned discussion is way beyond me and the only thing I've THOROUGHLY learned, is that I should feel very bad about liking any of these tulips. In fact I don't grow any at all but admit (guiltily) to liking Insulinde on the Oldhousegardens website. BOYSENBERRY ICE CREAM!!!

[Boyed]

With best regards, Zhirair
 I am jus getting prepared to answer Jim’s questions, but the connection seems to be slowing down very rapidly. So first I think I should place the pictures and then give explanations for them.