Having spent the day in the botanical garden I am now even more desperate for tulips, experiencing a highly localized and acute form of tulipomania. In verse 245 of the Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam writes,
Vexed by this wheel of things, that pets the base,
My sorrow-laden life drags on apace;
Like rosebud, from the storm I wrap me close,
And blood-spots on my heart, like tulip, trace.
trans. E. H. Whinfield
Tulips are spring-blooming perennial (living more than two years) herbaceous (vascular plants, with no woody stems above ground) bulbiferous (grown from bulbs) geophytes (using said bulbs as food storage organs during dormancy). Here are a few cultivars that have escaped cataloging, until now:
Goethe’s Interlocutor: Parrot-petaled, dark navy, with maroon edges
Six Day War: Red petals variegated with white, and a narrow black edge
Caravaggio’s Reredos: Yellow petals striped with green, black, and thin purple veins
Enrico Fermi’s Eight Inch Slide Rule: Yellow lily-flowered petals with seven horizontal symmetrically-spaced black marks on each petal
Hazy Fermata: Fringed lavender petals with a reddish-lilac center
Behemoth & Leviathan: Parrot petals in alternating red, pink, and fuchsia, with white edges
Deep Magic: Blue-purple petals with yellow-gold tips
Frazetta Girl: Pale blue petals variegated with blood-red
Egg Money: Yellow-edged petals with a white center