Description
Tulip Blossoms celebrates the beauty and anticipation that come with planting bulbs in the fall and waiting for spring’s colorful return. After months beneath the soil, sturdy green leaves emerge, followed by tulip blooms ranging from elegant and understated to bold and dramatic. This stamp issue showcases close-up views of 10 different tulips in a wide spectrum of vivid colors.
Tulips belong to the lily family, Liliaceae, and the genus Tulipa. They began as wildflowers in Central Asia, where they adapted to dry, rocky conditions by storing nutrients in their bulbs. Over time, traders carried tulips west along the Silk Route to Persia, where cultivation is believed to have started in the 10th century. By the 16th century, tulips had become highly fashionable in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, now known as Istanbul. The word “tulip” comes from a Turkish form of the Persian word for “turban,” a reference to the flower’s shape.
When diplomats sent bulbs from Constantinople to western Europe, the Dutch developed successful methods for growing and selling them. More than 400 years later, tulip production remains an important part of the Dutch economy.
Dutch immigrants later brought tulip bulbs to America, possibly as early as the 1600s. Since then, tulips have become a striking feature of the landscape in the United States, where more than one billion bulbs are now imported each year. They can be grown in much of the country, apart from the Deep South, and gardeners can choose from an enormous variety of types and colors.
The stamps were designed by art director Greg Breeding using existing photographs by Denise Ippolito.
Tulip Blossoms is issued as Forever stamps in booklets of 20, meaning the stamps always remain valid for the current one-ounce First-Class Mail postage rate.
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