Titillating Tulips

I took photos of these flowers on my daily walks here in a foreign country. They are breathtaking... They are multi-colored --- pink, yellow,lavender, orange, white. They made my day...They are called tulips.

Although tulips are connected with Holland ( dubbed as "Land of the Tulips") they can actually be found anywhere especially on mountainous areas with the dormancy of cool temperature. Hence, it will always be found in temperate regions. Since i am in the European country, tulips abound everywhere. I love tulips.

Here are some of the photos that i took. I hope i can go to Holland one day and so i can take photos of millions of well-manicured tulips. For the meantime, i am quite content with these ones...



Here is the origin of its name....

Although tulips are associated with Holland, both the flower and its name originated in the Ottoman Empire. The tulip is actually not a Dutch flower as many people tend to believe. The tulip, or "Lale" as it is called in Turkey, is a flower indigenous to Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and other parts of Central Asia. A Dutch ambassador in Turkey in the 16th century, who was also a great floral enthusiast, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, got their very names because of their Persian origins. Tulips were brought to Europe in the 16th century; the word tulip, which earlier in English appeared in such forms as tulipa or tulipant, entered the language by way of French tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend, "muslin, gauze." (The English word turban, first recorded in English in the 16th century, can also be traced to Ottoman Turkish tülbend.) The Turkish word for gauze, with which turbans can be wrapped, seems to have been used for the flower because a fully opened tulip was thought to resemble a turban.