Beautiful but poisonous, please be careful when visiting tulips!

Review expert: Shi Jun, PhD in botany, well-known popular science writer

Spring is here, and flowers are blooming in parks across the country, attracting many citizens to take photos and check in. Among them, there is one flower that is particularly popular, and that is the tulip .

Tulips bloom from March to April every year. Their bright colors and elegant shapes make them a beautiful spring photo. However, some netizens are not optimistic about this "tulip trend": Aren't tulips poisonous ? Isn't it unsafe to take photos so close to them?

Source: pixabay

Tulips, the ornamental flowers that everyone loves, are actually poisonous? Is this true? Do we have to be on guard against poisoning when we enjoy flowers in the future?

What kind of flower is a tulip?

Tulip is a perennial bulbous flower of the genus Tulip in the Liliaceae family . Its Latin name is Tulipa. It is the national flower of the Netherlands, but its origin is in the Mediterranean coast, Middle East Asia, Turkey and other places.

In 1981, the revised "International Classification and Identification List of Tulips" classified tulips into 4 categories and 15 types based on their flowering period, color, shape and other characteristics. They are single early-flowering group, double early-flowering group, victory group, Darwin hybrid group, single late-flowering group, lily group, lace group, green spot group, Rembrandt group, parrot group, double late-flowering group, Kaufman group, Foster group, Gerry group and other mixed groups.

Source: pixabay

At present, there are more than 8,000 horticultural varieties of tulips , which are bred through multiple crossbreeding of wild tulips and cultivated varieties.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted research on hybrid breeding of tulips. By 2021, the Liaoning Academy of Agricultural Sciences had bred 11 new varieties of tulips with independent intellectual property rights. At present, there are a total of 18 species of tulips bred in China, of which 13 are distributed in Xinjiang, and the remaining 5 are distributed in the Northeast and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Tulip varieties independently cultivated in my country

Source: Qu Lianwei; Xing Guimei, The road to creating the "Chinese tulip new variety group" (Part 2)

There are many varieties of tulips and their colors are also varied. For example, there are white, red, pink, green and other tulips, but there are currently no blue tulip varieties.

Among them, the most special are the black tulips, the main varieties of which include "Little Black Man" and "Queen of the Night".

Source: Baidu Encyclopedia Most tulips do not have a strong aroma, but a light or even no aroma. The flowering period of modern cultivated tulips is generally 1-3 weeks. Tulips themselves are not heat-resistant and are prone to decay and wither under high temperature.

Tulips are popular all over the world

Can you imagine that such a small and lovely flower as tulip could actually trigger an unprecedented bubble economy event in the Netherlands in the 17th century?

This happened in the Netherlands in the 17th century, when the Renaissance emerged in Europe and the great voyages of discovery began to rise. The living standards of Europeans greatly improved, laying the economic foundation for the subsequent tulip fever.

At that time, tulips, as a beautiful ornamental plant, were loved by many people, especially aristocrats. The prices of some popular tulip varieties began to rise sharply.

At that time, some tulip varieties such as "Viceroy" could be sold for 2,500 Dutch guilders (Dutch currency), while 8 pigs only sold for 230 guilders. The most popular variety, "Semper Augustus", was said to be sold for 10,000 Dutch guilders, which was enough to buy a villa at the time...

"Eternal Augustine" Source: redbubble.com

The "tulip bubble" thus unfolded, but the bubble was destined to be fragile. The high returns prompted local flower growers to expand the planting area and actively cultivate high-quality tulip varieties, which resulted in tulips becoming less scarce and prices began to fall.

Within a few months, the price of tulips fluctuated dramatically, triggering the world's first bubble economic event, which is known in economics as "Tulip mania".

Interestingly, most of the tulip varieties that were highly sought after during this craze had gorgeous special patterns. However, later studies have found that these patterns are actually caused by tulips being infected by a virus called Tulip Breaking Virus , which is spread by aphids.

Broken color tulip source 丨 Wikipedia

Although this virus can produce beautiful patterns on tulips, with two or more brilliant colors, it will reduce the reproductive capacity of the bulbs and cause them to degenerate prematurely.

However, in the past few years, through the unremitting research of scientists, many healthy and beautiful broken-color tulips have been bred, such as the Keizerkroon red and yellow bicolor tulip, the Zurel white with purple-red flame tulip, etc.

Are tulips poisonous?

In fact, it is true that tulips are poisonous, but they have little impact on humans. They are mainly fatally toxic to animals such as cats and dogs.

Just imagine, if tulips are poisonous to humans, then the Netherlands is a major tulip producing country, with a planting area accounting for more than 30% of the country's land. Wouldn't that mean the Dutch people are living in a drug den every day?

In fact, the toxins in tulips mainly come from the alkaloids in their bulbs, such as tuliposide A and rutin B, but this alkaloid is not volatile, and poisoning will only occur if it is directly touched or eaten.

Under normal circumstances, people appreciate flowers but do not eat them. However, cats and dogs may tear apart plants and flowers, leading to accidental ingestion of alkaloids and poisoning.

Tulips and cats

Source: pixabay

Therefore, as long as you do not come into contact with tulips for a long time, especially damaged tulips, you will not be poisoned. However, if you have children or pets at home, you need to be extra careful. It is recommended not to grow tulips at home, as you can never be sure that children and small animals will be curious and eat these "poisonous flowers" by mistake.

In short, "tulips are harmful to the human body" is false, but "tulips are beautiful" is true. If you like tulips, then take advantage of this blooming season to appreciate them more.