How the wild tulip (Tulipa sylvestris L.) found its way in Northern Europe in the 17th to 19th century: a search through historical gardens and archives

Tulipa sylvestris is a tulip species with yellow fragrant flowers that was introduced to Northern Europe from the Mediterranean region in the 16th century. Two and a half centuries later, the plant was described as naturalized and had found its place in and outside many gardens of Europe. Today, it is the only tulip species that grows wild in Northern Europe. Two main routes have been described for the16th-century introduction: one from Italy, around Bologna, and one from France, around Montpellier. We explore the further introduction and naturalization history of T. sylvestris in the Netherlands and Northern Europe in the 17th to the 19th century, providing an overview of mentions in herbaria, florilegia, catalogues, seed lists of botanic gardens, and garden magazines published in this period. We show that both the Italian and the French tulip remained in cultivation in Northern Europe, but also that most sources mention the Italian origin. The French tulip, linked to the subspecies T. sylvestris subsp. australis, is prominent in Scandinavian sources and occasionally appears in sources from the Netherlands, England and the German-speaking area. Furthermore, T. sylvestris was apparently exchanged on a regular basis between botanic gardens in Northern Europe around the second half of the 19th century. Finally, we demonstrate that in Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands where T. sylvestris still grows abundantly in historical gardens, many of the current locations coincide with historical and cultural sites, and the design of parks in landscape style in the 18th and 19th century.

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