Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Tulips in my window


Tulips came from what is now pretty much China and were brought to us by the Turks. The Dutch fancied them so much they covered half the tiny land they conquered from the sea with these lovely flowers. The "tulip" denomination present in most European languages comes from the Turkish turbans, but some feisty Balkan languages such as Romanian and Serbian went straight to the origins and use the Turkish version of lale(a). The Hungarian wild tulip (Tulipa hungarica) is yellow and inhabits mainly the Iron Gates region. naturally situated not in Hungary, but between the above mentioned Romania and Serbia. My grandmother finds the tulip to be a very useful flower, as it is used as an electoral symbol by the main Hungarian party in Romania. "I never bother with reading their names, I just stamp the damn flower!"

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