Trendy Facts About Tulips.

Tulips are my wife’s favorite flowers, and if I had a favorite flower, they’d probably be mine too!

Part of the Lilly family, these interesting little flowers symbolize Spring and the coming summer – but also hold many different meanings for their different colors.

Although wholly synonymous with the Netherlands, they are not native to Eastern Europe – having been first imported from the Middle East and cultivated by Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius at the Dutch Leiden University’s botanical gardens.

But did you know that tulips are edible? Or that they are the National Flower of Turkey and Afghanistan?

Or what about the fact that tulips helped save the Netherlands from starving in WWII?

Well, all that and more to come in these 5 Fun Facts About Tulips…

Despite being the National Flower of the Netherlands, the tulip is not native to the Netherlands.

The tulip bloomed natively in a big swathe of land that covered Southern Europe to Central Asia, but was introduced into eastern Europe in the form of imports from what is now known as Turkey.

The tulip became a coveted prize within the Netherlands, as it was far more vibrant and lush in color than the flowers native to this part of the world.

Tulips became a status symbol to the Dutch and contributed to one of the world’s first financial economic bubbles known as “Tulipmania” where they were so valuable, they could be used to buy a house!

To this day, the Netherlands is still the world’s foremost producer of tulips, producing 3 billion bulbs yearly, most of which are exported worldwide.