We tend to forget that tulips originally came from Anatolia -- now Turkey. The story, perhaps apocryphal, is that a Dutchman was visiting Anatolia several centuries ago and fell in love with the tulips. He mailed 5 bulbs to a friend in the Netherlands. The friend cooked 3 of them, didn't care for the taste, so he threw the other two in the garden. The rest is history. The Dutch became entranced with tulips and proceded to spread them around the world.
This year the city of Istanbul planted 6 million tulips to celebrate its Tulip Festival. Here is a picture of some of them blooming outside the Topkapi palace on April 11, 2006.
