The Tulip Journey from the East to the West
The tulip first extended from Asia to the west during trade roads. The tulip that came to Anatolia along with the Seljuk Turks adorned the gardens and the Seljuk palace walls. After the foundation of the Ottoman state, the tulip continued to ornate all parts of life. Tulip drawings were used on the t-shirts of the sultans, the cases of the soldiers and on the walls of palaces and mosques. After the conquest of 1453 the new selected place of the tulip was Istanbul. New types were obtained among tulips brought from different places such as Crimea and Syria.
The knowledge of Europe with the tulip was in the second half of the 16th century A.D. According to different resources, the beginning of tulip growth in Europe coincides with the years 1555-1562. There were also tulip seeds among the plants taken to Europe from Istanbul by the ambassador of the Austria-Hungary Empire, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq in the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The tulip caught Busbecq’s attention and gave the seeds of this plant to his friend Carolus Clusius, his expert botanist friend and his friend introduces the tulip to the Dutch. And over time the tulips that left from Istanbul become the national flower of Holland.