PARROT TULIP SEEDLINGS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 8, 24 February 1909, Page 40

PARROT TULIP SEEDLINGS.

A gentleman in New Zealand writes to say that seven years ago he was fortunate enough to save some seed from a parrot tulip, and that seven of the seedlings flowered last August. He describes them as being about 15 inches high and of ordinary tulip shape. Two are crimsonpink with the lower part of the segments white, one is light yellow with a bright crimson edge, one is creamy white with a pink edge, and the others are creamy •white with slight crimson markings on the divisions. This is an extremely interesting faet, for as far as I can learn it is the first authenticated case of

seedlings raised from a parrot parent. 1 fancy most of us would have thought some Platystigma would have appeared, but it is not so. The origin of parrot tulips is somewhat obscure. From my own observation, and from what 1 can learn from others they are in all probability sports, and, moreover, any variety may take on this peculiar form. Last April, at one of the Royal Horticultural Society’s meetings, I saw a chrysolora whose petals were well on the way to becoming parrots; and at Mr. van Tubergan’s grounds at Haarlem this spring I saw an Eleanora which had quite taken on a parrot form. Mr. E. H. Krelage knows a lilac and yellow parrot that originated some little time ago from a Bybloemen tulip in a Haarlem nursery. The reason why they are not met with earlier in the history of the tulip is probably that they were originally looked upon as undesirable and severely repressed. One of the first recorded is called Le Monstre Jaune, and in 1745 AVeinmann, who pictures several, labels them “ Monstrosities.” As a parallel case I would refer to what has happened to the chrysanthemum, the carnation and dahlia in our own immediate days, when types are popular and much appreciated which a very short time ago were discarded as worthless. The experience of our New Zealand friend seems to bear out my theory. It will be of great service if, after the next flowering season, he will send a note about the behaviour of those which have yet to flower, and also what he finds the result to be of his equally interesting Platystigma offspring.