Dutch tulip history traditionally begins in 1593 when botanist Carolus Clusius, who had been known for his work in Prague and Vienna with medicinal herbs, came to Leiden in Holland to become head botanist of the new botanical garden or "hortus" at the University of Leiden. It was he who planted the first known tulips in Holland, assisted by Cluyt, a skilled botanist and pharmacist in the old town of Delft, located south of The Hague.
FYI: Recently research reveals that Cluyt played a greater role in Leiden's Hortus than was previously assumed. He was also a famous bee-keeper and one of the first Dutchmen to publish a book about bee-keeping. His book took the form of a morning dialogue with Clusius and was entitled "God Feeds All Creatures".

Who was Clusius?

Carolus Clusius, who lived from 1526 to 1609, was a renowned botanist in his time. Among his other activities, he was engaged at the Imperial Medicinal Herb Garden in Prague. There, and in Vienna, he cultivated all kinds of plants. Among these plants were the tulips that were given to him be a man named De Busbecq who lived from 1522 to 1592. De Busbecq was the ambassador to the court of Sultan Suleiman in Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman Empire. While there, De Busbecq encountered tulips and was the first Westerner to mention their existence in known writings from the day.

Clusius left Vienna in 1593 to go to the Netherlands, a country more tolerant of his Protestant religious beliefs. (Because of his beliefs, he could no longer function in his job in Prague and Vienna.) He was appointed in 1593 as "hortulanus" or head botanist of Leiden's Hortus, the first botanical garden in western Europe. He brought part of his collection, including his tulips, along with him. He planted them behind a university building in a garden that was still very small in those days; it measured only twelve hundred square meters.

The Start of an Epoch

Clusius seems to have looked at the value of tulip bulbs strictly in terms of a scientific perspective. He was also very stingy with them and refused to give bulbs away or even to sell them.

However, there were some folks who saw the possibility of making money with the bulbs and they wanted to get their hands on some to cultivate and sell them. But Clusius remained inflexible. He wouldn't give up any.

Unfortunately some people can't take no for an answer -- in any century. Several frustrated bulb buyers conspired to pay an unannounced visit to the garden -- and stole part of Clusius' collection (a collection that probably wasn't very big). And that was in all probability the start of the Dutch tulip industry. As a result of a burglary, and aided by typical Dutch instinct for horticulture and business, the Dutch passion for tulips become has become a "flower force" felt worldwide.

In the early 1990s, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the tulip in Holland, the curators of the Leiden botanical garden unveiled a recreation of Clusius' original garden (at two thirds its original size) in another location within the Hortus. The garden is laid out according to historic plans with the tulips grown by Clusius, as well as other plants from Clusius' time, too - including plants then recently discovered in the New World such as the potato, tomato, corn, tagetes and the tobacco plant.

Soon after Clusius' arrival in Leiden, the first books documenting all kinds of known plants came into existence. What is striking is that it was the tulip that was often illustrated, even on the covers. This is curious because, in the 1500s and 1600s, botanists considered plants that could be eaten or used as medicines of most importance. And the tulip did not fall into either category.

Those Very Early Tulips

There has been a lot of discussion - and, yes, it's still going on, too - about which tulip species were the first ones to be planted in Leiden. It is generally assumed that not all were actual wild species. That is because it is known that the Turks were already crossing and selecting (hybridizing) tulips at least as early as the time of Sultan Suleiman who lived from 1494 until 1566.

It is highly possible that some of these Turkish cultivars (hybridized tulips) were present in Clusius' collection. In fact Tulipa 'Duc van Tol Red and Yellow' is considered to have been an early predecessor of many of the tulips we know today. T. 'Lac van Rijn' is another of the very old varieties.