Tulips Carol Klein's Plant Odysseys


Tulips

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Of the 420,000 flowering plants on our planets,

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only a fraction of them have entranced us enough

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for us to bring them in from the wild and grow them in our gardens.

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But many of the plants we know and love today

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look totally different from their ancestors.

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Evolution and mankind have conspired

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to shape a multitude of diverse forms.

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How spectacular!

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This is my plant odyssey.

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I love that one.

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This is one of a kind. This is the only one in the world.

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I'm going to trace some of our favourite plants...

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..from their earliest origins

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and, through their captivating stories,

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reveal why they have such significance in our culture...

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Oh, it's glorious!

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..and such a special place in our hearts.

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I'm looking at one of the world's best-loved flowers,

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with its kaleidoscopic range of colours

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and its distinctive goblet-shaped blooms.

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It's a familiar sight,

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and yet its subtle sheen

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and its mysterious interior

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give it an intriguing, almost mystical persona.

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The tulip!

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With its seemingly infinite variety of shapes, colours and forms,

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it's little wonder that the tulip has catapulted itself

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into the centre of the gardening stage and into our hearts.

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But where did the first tulips come from?

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How did they change so dramatically in less than 600 years?

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And why did a handful of flowers almost bankrupt a country?

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My tulip odyssey takes me to Turkey.

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I'll travel from the snow-capped mountains in the east

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to the exotic palaces of the sultans in the west.

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Even the whole dome is like an enormous tulip.

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I'll retrace the tulip's voyage from Constantinople to Holland.

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This is so exciting.

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On a journey that explores the bizarre and exotic history

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of this enigmatic flower.

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My odyssey begins in the remote mountains of eastern Turkey.

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I'm on the hunt for a species tulip,

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one of the early ancestors of the tulips we know and love.

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They evolved in landscapes like these

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across Central Asia around 30 million years ago.

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I've come a long way, but I would have come from the ends of the Earth

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just to see this beautiful tulip.

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This is the very first species tulip I have ever seen.

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It's Tulipa armena.

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It grows all through this rough old ground,

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and so perfect, so beautiful.

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You look at the soil and you think, "How could anything live like that?"

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but, of course, this is a tulip that's perfectly adapted

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and evolved with its situation and its setting.

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Its short, thick stem and tightly wrapped petals

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allow this tulip to cope with the constant buffeting

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of the mountain winds.

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If modern tulips with their more slender stems

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and their folds of delicate petals were planted here

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they'd never survive the battering.

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But Tulipa armena is made of sterner stuff.

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It's a bulb.

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It lives under the ground all through those cold, cold winters.

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They are cold, we're high up here.

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I've always taken bulbs for granted, but inside they're a marvel.

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The layers are embryonic leaves, each packed with energy.

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Over winter, the bulb lies dormant, saving this reserve

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for a single glorious moment - the first snow melt.

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As the water seeps into the ground, something stirs.

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Safe at the heart of the bulb is the secret behind the tulip's success -

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a miniature clone of a parent.

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The energy in these layers is rapidly broken down

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to provide the surge needed for this tiny clone

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to burst up through the soil and bloom.

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Up it comes, these beautiful crinkled leaves.

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They're completely unlike most of the tulips we grow in our garden.

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They're not crinkled just because it looks nice,

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they're crinkled for a purpose.

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It's partly to retain moisture and, also, if the leaf was flattened out,

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then the sun would beat down on it, so it protects the leaves.

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It needs all the nutrition it can get from those leaves

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until this flower has been pollinated.

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This is the tulips' ultimate goal.

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But attracting a pollinator isn't always easy in mountains like these.

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Their bright red, bulbous flowers have evolved

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to act as beacons to passing insects.

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But these flowers offer the bees more than just a meal.

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Our thermal cameras reveal something remarkable -

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a hidden microclimate inside the bloom,

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around five degrees warmer than the temperature outside.

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In this pocket of warm air,

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the insects are protected from the harsh mountain elements.

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They can safely and comfortably relax and gorge themselves

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without their flight muscles getting too cold.

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The bees will often spend the whole night

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cosily ensconced inside the flower

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before leaving the next morning covered in the plant's pollen.

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I just think it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

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Compare this to the tulips we grow in our garden.

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You can see the similarities, and at the same time you can tell

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that this is a species plant, this is how nature intended it to be.

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Seeing these tulips in the wild is exciting,

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but it leaves me with more questions -

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how did the tulip escape the isolation of these mountains

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and become one of the world's most celebrated flowers?

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I need to head west to find the answer.

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Across the centuries, many famous names

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have travelled the silk routes from Central Asia to the West.

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Marco Polo, Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great,

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they all passed through the city destined to become the epicentre

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of the tulip world -

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Istanbul.

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Look how colourful these spices are.

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-How are you?

-I'm very well. All the better for seeing all this.

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Manchester, yes. I'm from Manchester.

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It's just... I can't describe it. It's so atmospheric.

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You just feel that you're at the confluence of all these

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different cultures, you can feel the history.

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You can imagine the sorts of adventures that took place.

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It looks delightful.

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Very, very nice.

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No calories.

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No calories.

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You can just feel that whole sort of sensation

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that this has been such an important place for so many different people.

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It's believed to be the Seljuk tribe who, in the 11th century,

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stuffed tulips into their saddlebags alongside their spices and silks,

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and brought them to Istanbul.

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Look, look, look. Look at the tulips. Come on.

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Isn't that beautiful?

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Look, look at this.

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They're tulips, yes? Lovely.

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For centuries, the tulip has been a Turkish icon.

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It's still regarded here as the embodiment of beauty and perfection.

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This is the Rustem Pasha Mosque, and within these walls

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is convincing evidence of the importance of a certain plant

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to the Ottoman Empire.

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I'm about to enter what can only be described as tulip mecca.

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It's so silent.

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It's so holy.

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Every inch of these walls is just covered in these beautiful tiles

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and such glowing colours.

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The more you look at them,

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the more tulips you see...everywhere.

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Even the whole dome is like an enormous tulip.

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Look here.

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The same elongated, etiolated shape.

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Tiny little ones here.

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It's a motif in absolutely every tile.

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And how...how vital it is.

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You know, this is flat clay with colour that's been baked in a kiln,

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and yet the whole thing is alive.

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It just shows such a sense of reverence for that flower.

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Tulips assumed profound religious significance in Ottoman culture.

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They represented the oneness of God,

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a single flower rising on a stem from a bulb.

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There was even a period in Turkish history known as the Tulip Era.

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The sultan of the time, Ahmed III, hosted tulip competitions

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and lavish full-moon parties,

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where the nobles enjoyed the spectacle of their favourite blooms.

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I feel the same - flowers are perfectly choreographed,

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each one an exquisite performance.

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They're magnificently ostentatious.

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Yet, at the same time, rigorously functional.

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Each day starts as the flowers unfurl,

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a process regulated by temperature.

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In the morning, as the temperature rises,

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the surface on the inside of the petal grows faster than the outside.

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The tension this creates causes the flower to open.

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In the evening, as the air cools,

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the outside of the petals grows faster than the inside,

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and the flower closes.

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I can just imagine the sultan and his guests out in the moonlight

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revelling in the ballet that would unfold before them.

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Although the Ottomans were undoubtedly excellent botanists,

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there were greater forces at work.

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I like the idea that the sultan's gardeners needed some

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botanical serendipity to get them started.

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They were constantly on the lookout for new flowers,

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and tulips started to pour into the centre

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to satisfy the sultan's needs.

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When they reached their destination, they were planted side by side,

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so tulips met each other

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who would never have been introduced in the wild.

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Of course, most flowers are promiscuous,

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and when a bee came along,

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bees being what they are and not particular about where

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they get their pollen, they collected the pollen from one

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of these flowers and deposited it

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on the female part of another flower.

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To us, it looks like an alien world.

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But flowers are complex and precise organs of reproduction.

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Insects arrive for one reason - to eat.

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And the tulip must be ready to take advantage of this visit.

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At the top of each stamen sits an anther, a tiny pollen factory.

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The plant pumps water into the anthers for the pollen to absorb.

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As the pollen grows, the anthers shrivel.

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Finally, they split and the pollen bursts forth.

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The anthers seem to almost turn inside out.

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Exposed to the air, the pollen dries.

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It becomes detachable and dormant, fluffy and light.

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The insects are covered in excess pollen

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as they feast at different flowers,

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and eventually these grains of pollen

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find their way on to the stigma of a compatible flower.

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This female part is covered in jelly-producing filaments.

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On contact, the pollen grains rehydrate,

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awaken from their dormant state and fertilise the flower.

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In the sultan's garden,

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these different tulips would have cross-pollinated randomly.

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Amongst them, there must have been true gems.

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When at last they bloomed, the sultan would have been overjoyed.

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Finally it would have dawned on people that it was possible

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to play the part of those insects,

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to choose the parents and to move the pollen very deliberately

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from one plant to another.

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This was the breakthrough -

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it was the Ottomans ability to manipulate nature,

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coupled with the promiscuous qualities of the tulip,

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that would change this flower forever.

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Millions of years of evolution fastforwarded in only a few decades,

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and these astonishing hybrids soon spread across the planet.

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The Ottoman's story is one of sultans possessed

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by a kind of tulip madness,

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but their stories pale in comparison to the tulip obsession

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that gripped an entire nation on the other side of the known world.

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The next leg of my odyssey follows the footsteps

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of the globetrotting ambassadors who triumphantly sailed back to Europe

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bearing tulips among their treasures.

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They ended up here -

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the first place you think of when you think of tulips.

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Holland is the hub of our global tulip industry.

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The Aalsmeer Warehouse, the largest building on Earth,

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trades 19 million flowers every day.

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But the tulip industry hasn't always been so prosperous.

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By a pure quirk of nature,

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this flower brought the Dutch economy to its knees.

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It's a story that almost ended before it began.

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The relationship between the Dutch and their beloved tulips

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got off to the worst of starts.

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When tulips first arrived in northern Europe,

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nobody had a clue what to do with them.

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In one well-documented case,

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a merchant who had been sent some as a present ordered his servants

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to stick them on the fire and roast them.

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He thought they were some kind of onions.

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They were disgusting!

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But within 40 years of arriving in Holland,

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the tulip had become a national obsession.

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Can you imagine the excitement when in 1637 a single tulip bulb sold

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for the same price as one of these fine town houses would have cost?

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This was tulip mania.

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And, like the Tulip Era of the Ottoman Empire,

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it started with the obsessions of a wealthy elite

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and a very special type of tulip.

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This is one of the big treats on my odyssey.

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Henk Looijesteijn, a historian of the Dutch Golden Age,

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is about to show me one of the great treasures of the Frans Hals Museum -

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a unique 400-year-old hand-painted tulip catalogue.

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This is so exciting. How beautiful.

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Yes, this is an example of what Dutchmen

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in the early 17th century prized most.

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An exquisite pattern on every flower, petal,

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colour splashed over the petals, that was new, that was rare.

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It was never seen before in a flower,

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which is why people were really excited.

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So tulips like this were uncommon, they were very rare. Who owned them?

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Mostly the elite owned them - rich merchants, wealthy politicians.

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Often they were the same in the Dutch Republic.

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They were the only ones who could afford these rare, exotic flowers.

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They were collecting tulips, so to say,

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just as they were collecting paintings.

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So they appreciated their beauty,

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it wasn't just a question of their value.

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It was first and foremost their beauty.

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It was this beauty that inspired some similarly seductive names.

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There was the delicate Coquette, the instiller of passion,

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the increaser of pleasure, and the matchless Pearl.

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-I know there's one very famous one.

-Yeah.

-It's in this book, isn't it?

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-Exactly.

-Can we have a look at that?

-We should turn to that one.

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Now, even I know what this is. This is the tulip of tulips, isn't it?

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Semper Augustus.

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Always the emperor, the Semper Augustus.

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That was how it was called when it was first grown in the 1620s.

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It's the most prized tulip,

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the prima donna amongst all the tulips of the Dutch Golden Age.

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Soon everyone wanted a piece of the action.

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Tulips were no longer regarded as natural works of art

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but as a commodity.

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They were traded furiously, changing hands up to ten times a day.

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People even started trading bulbs planted in the ground

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with no idea of what they were buying.

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Families invested fortunes.

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A single bulb even traded for a flourishing brewery.

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There was no stopping the wild speculation.

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The world's first bubble economy was about to burst.

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So this is the painting I wanted to show you,

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which admirably sums up the entire mania aspect of tulip mania.

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Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

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What's its title, Hank?

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-It's called De Mallewagen, or The Fool's Wagon.

-Yeah.

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The wagon is gathering speed and everyone wants to get...

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-To jump on the wagon.

-To jump on the wagon, to partake in the tulip mania.

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So who's the lady in the centre?

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On top of the wagon you see flower goddess Flora,

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the Roman goddess of flowers.

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She's depicted as unreliable, a fraud, a cheat.

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She has tulips in her hand. She's surrounded by fools.

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It's all out of greed, is the suggestion.

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Then the old man with a bag of money.

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What you'll see is that actually this all goes nowhere.

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The sailing wagon ends up, in the end, in the sea,

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and everyone aboard drowns.

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So what actually happened then?

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It starts with an auction in Haarlem,

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on the 3rd of February 1637, where nobody wants to buy tulips any more.

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They lower the price three times, but nobody wants to buy.

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Then they realised something is wrong.

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Over the next few days, the entire tulip trade in the Netherlands stops.

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Almost overnight it changes.

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Yes, almost overnight it changes. It comes to an end.

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They thought it was a trade in things which actually had no

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intrinsic value to them.

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It wasn't a real trade.

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Instead of an object of admiration,

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the tulip becomes a symbol of foolishness and ridicule.

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But what caused these prized markings in the Semper Augustus,

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this symbol of the mania and folly?

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They were known as broken tulips and the answer is in their name.

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Broken tulips are the mutant survivors of a virus

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that usually kills tulips.

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The Semper Augustus should have been red, but the virus inhibits

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the formation of the red pigment as the petals develop.

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These breaks in the pigment reveal the underlying white tissue,

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creating these mesmerising patterns.

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Each broken tulip is different,

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each a unique mosaic of marking and colour.

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Importantly, the virus dramatically inhibits

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the plant's ability to reproduce.

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So it wasn't just their exquisite beauty that made these tulip

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so expensive, it was their rarity.

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Even at the height of tulip mania,

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there were only ever a handful of broken tulips in circulation.

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At long last, I'm about to see what all the fuss was about.

0:24:540:24:58

They told me I'd find you here in the middle of your tulips.

0:25:000:25:03

I'm Carol, how do you do?

0:25:030:25:05

'Jan Ligthart is a tulip breeder.

0:25:050:25:07

'With other 30 tulip varieties to his name,

0:25:070:25:10

'he's one of the biggest producers in Holland.'

0:25:100:25:13

He started growing tulips at the age of 13,

0:25:140:25:17

made his first hybrid at 17 and knows just about everything

0:25:170:25:22

there is to know about tulips, especially broken ones.

0:25:220:25:25

Look at that, that's just like those tulips

0:25:290:25:32

we saw in the Frans Hals Museum in the book.

0:25:320:25:35

Yeah, this is a broken tulip.

0:25:350:25:37

-But they were sick.

-They were sick.

0:25:370:25:40

-So we don't want them.

-Right.

-They have to get out of it.

0:25:400:25:43

-It's garbage, it's worthless.

-It's dangerous.

0:25:440:25:48

It's very dangerous,

0:25:480:25:49

because this illness can spread all over the field.

0:25:490:25:52

-Yeah.

-We take it out and destroy it.

0:25:520:25:54

Although Jan must destroy any broken tulips he finds,

0:25:540:25:58

his ancestral reverence for these flowers remains.

0:25:580:26:02

His passion in life is creating healthy versions

0:26:020:26:05

of these flawed beauties.

0:26:050:26:08

-So these are all your...

-These are all new broken tulips.

0:26:080:26:12

-New broken tulips?

-Yeah. Look at this.

0:26:120:26:14

How amazing.

0:26:140:26:16

-Beautiful.

-This is one of a kind. This is the only one in the world.

0:26:160:26:19

-I found it last year.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

0:26:190:26:21

So the whole point about this is that you walk around

0:26:210:26:25

and you find these, these are natural mutations.

0:26:250:26:28

Yeah, by accident. You have to be lucky.

0:26:280:26:32

There's a lot more to it than luck.

0:26:320:26:35

You need intuition, dedication and a few decades.

0:26:350:26:39

Each one starts with a simple idea of combining two flowers.

0:26:400:26:44

-So you've got a picture in your mind already.

-Yeah. In a way it is, yeah.

0:26:460:26:51

Keep your fingers crossed, wait till the seed grows, and then what?

0:26:510:26:55

Do you keep them all?

0:26:550:26:56

No. From 10,000-15,000 pieces, you only select maybe ten of them.

0:26:560:27:02

CAROL GASPS Only the best.

0:27:020:27:03

-Only the best.

-Only the best.

0:27:030:27:06

-Well, this is beautiful.

-It's lovely.

0:27:060:27:08

Three years ago, I found the first plant,

0:27:080:27:10

the two kinds of colours really broken but without virus.

0:27:100:27:16

So you would gradually, gradually build up a stock of this.

0:27:160:27:19

-What do you do?

-It takes many years.

-And a lot of patience.

-Yes.

0:27:190:27:23

You've got some very, very new sort of tulips here, haven't you?

0:27:250:27:30

-It's a crossing between the Pearl tulip and the Fringe tulip.

-Right.

0:27:300:27:34

It's a brand-new tulip. Totally different.

0:27:340:27:36

Yeah, and available in 25 years.

0:27:370:27:40

-LAUGHING:

-OK, I'll come back.

0:27:400:27:42

Jan's tulips are almost unbelievable

0:27:450:27:48

when you walk up and down these rows.

0:27:480:27:51

You see tulips that you could never, ever have imagined.

0:27:510:27:55

Jan's patient work reflects the sense of romance that

0:27:570:28:01

inspired both the Dutch and the Ottoman tulip enthusiasts.

0:28:010:28:05

Having followed the story of the original broken tulips,

0:28:080:28:12

I feel sad that the infinite possibilities of these

0:28:120:28:16

exquisite but flawed flowers can no longer be enjoyed.

0:28:160:28:20

Though the virus is now under control,

0:28:230:28:25

one infection remains - our love affair with the tulip.

0:28:250:28:31

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