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A very special little tulip that has naturalised in parts of the UK (though it never seems to be particularly happy about it).
I have a small clump in a sunny corner of the herbaceous border where I can keep it free enough of weeds
to persist. It may even be increasing slowly. In 2020 I planted it in larger numbers in the new herbaceous border and it has done well. In 'The Vanishing Garden', Chris Brickell says: "One of the first to be identified in 1536 was T.sylvestris, which is thought to have been introduced to Britain by the Romans if it was not already native. It is distributed in the southern USSR, northwest Iran, North Africa and southern Europe and is naturalised further north and west as far as Britain. It was known as the yellow tulip of Bologna, 'near which city it is still abundant' in Hall's words, and is 'essentially a weed of vineyards'. Its scented, clear yellow flowers, with petals reddening and curved at the pointed tips, are carried generally in pairs on stems up to 12 inches high in April and May. Their greenish exterior, larger size and unhappily their greater reluctance to materialise in the British climate are the chief characteristics distinguishing it from the closely allied T. australis (which is sometimes treated as a subspecies)." |
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| 10th April 2011 | ||
