Author: Mike Dash: Tulipomania

Opening line from Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused, by Mike Dash;

"They came from all over Holland, dressed like crows in black from head to foot and journeying along frozen tracks rendered treacherous by the scars of a thousand hooves and narrow wheels."

Tulip bulbs were first recorded by taxonomists as found in the Pamir and Tien Shan mountains in Afghanistan, China, Tibet, and Russia. They were coveted by the warrior nomadic peoples as the true heralds of spring. The Turkish Selijiks were the ones to bring the bulbs to western Europe under the Ottoman empire.

Although this book is basically about flowers, the text is not burdened by flowery prose. Dash has been highly lauded in his extensive research and detail to a fascinating script in history that led to the humble bulb, sometimes worth many times its weight in gold, to at times surpass the value of coveted precious metals commodities all over the world.

The first known literary reference to tulips is among (the humble 'tent-maker') Omar Khayyam's (1048-1122) works such as his Rubaiyat

As then the Tulip for her wonted sup,
Of Heavenly Vintage lifts her chalice up,
Do you, twin offspring of the soil,
till Heav'n To Earth invert you like an empty Cup.

The Amsterdam Tulip Museum includes some great images and history of the tulip.