Riding by road-bike from Wassenaar to Noord Wijker Hout, I was witnessed amazing fields of color. TULIPS are growing, maybe a little late this year! Looking at the photo I notice how symmetrical the flowers are and is the national flower or Afghanistan and Turkey. However, The Netherlands is the largest world producer of tulips with over 3 billion bulbs sold annually.

When the botinist Carolus Clusius was made director of Leiden University’s Hortus Botanicus (small garden behind University of Leiden), Carolus asked the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to collect various species of plants. In 1594, the first tulip was planted in the Hortus Botanicus. This was the start of the tulip in The Netherlands.