![]() The goddess, Nemesis, heard about poor Echo, and lured Narcissus to a shimmering lake. She pined so that soon all that was left of her was her voice. She was so devastated by his rejection that she wept and wailed, and was ultimately consumed by her love. He was so handsome, she fell desperately in love, but Narcissus spurned her. Once, while Narcissus was hunting in the woods, a nubile wood nymph named Echo saw him from her hiding place behind a tree. His beauty was permanent and he was immortal, as long as he never viewed his own reflection. Remember Narcissus? Know people who are narcissistic? It all flows from the famous Greek myth about Narcissus, a handsome youth, who was granted his great good looks by the Gods. According to the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center, the USA is the biggest importer of Dutch bulbs, and in a recent year, $130,000,000 worth of Dutch bulbs (at wholesale) were imported. Today, over nine billion flower bulbs are produced each year in Holland, and about 7 billion of them are exported, for an export value of three quarters of a billion dollars. So ever since those days, the enterprising Dutch have built one of the best organized production and export businesses in the world. Of course, all this did not reduce the real demand, the love of the sheer beauty of the flowers. Many rich traders became paupers overnight, and the prices finally settled at a much more practical level. and you can have a very similar "Rembrandt" tulip bulb now for about 50 cents!) Just a short time later, one famous sale is recorded for a single bulb going for the equivalent of $2250 plus a horse and carriage! It was an incredible bubble, and it was about to burst.ĭuring the 1630s, the frenzy continued as notarized bills of sale were being issued for bulbs, fraud and speculation were rampant, and what always happens with financial "bubbles" happened. By 1624, one tulip type, with only 12 bulbs available, was selling for 3000 guilders per bulb, the equivalent ot about $1500 today. As the hybrids became more and more glamorous, the limited supply of certain bulbs became highly prized by the rich, who ultimately, were willing to pay almost any price. Through the early 1600's the prices skyrocketed as an actual trading market developed. As a trade in the bulbs began, the prices began to rise. Once a few bulbs got beyond the protective grasp of Clusius, they were considered very precious rarities. ![]() DeBusbecq gave Clusius some tulip bulbs from Central Asia, and he brought those bulbs with him to Holland. There, Clusius had met a person called De Busbecq who was the ambassador to the court of the Sultan Suleiman in Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman Empire. However, his "tulip connection" actually began during his earlier projects in Vienna. But in 1593, he was appointed "Hortulanus", the contemporary title for head botanist, at the University of Leiden's now famous "Hortus", the first botanical garden in Western Europe. ![]() He had worked in Prague and Vienna, mostly with medicinal herbs. The main flow of the tulip story in Holland actually begins with a botanist named Carolus Clusius, working at the University of Leiden. ![]() These were the multicolored blooms that today are called "Rembrandt" tulips, even though the famous Dutch painter never painted flowers. Others showed the "flamed" tulips that were very exotic to the Europeans, and interest in these "new flowers" continued to grow. One botanical rendering in particular, called Tulipa bononiensis, became very famous. Beautiful botanical drawings of tulips began appearing in Europe, so beautiful, in fact, that they gained wide notice. During the 1500's, Europeans became plant explorers, and began recording their findings. ![]()
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