One of my favorite things that I got to got to last month was the Keukenhof Gardens, which are tulip gardens. The Netherlands are famous for their tulips so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about tulips.
The Tulip were originally a wild flower growing in the Central Asia. The flower were introduced in the westen Europe and the Netherlands in the 17th century by Carolus Clusius, a famous biologist from Vienna.
In the beginning of the 17th century the tulip were staring to be used as a garden decoration beside the former medicinal purposes. It soon gained major popularity as a trading product, especially in Holland. The interest for the flower were hugh and bulbs were sold for unbelievable high prices. In the months of late 1636 to early 1637 there was a complete "Tulipmania" in the Netherlands.
The traders made hugh amounts of money every month, and people sold everything to participate. The government could not do anything to stop it, the trade was all about access and demand. But finally the tulip did not appear to be quite so rare to justify such high prices. Over-supply led to lower prices and dealers went bankrupt and many people lost their savings because of the trade. This "Tulip Crash" made the government introduce special trading restrictions for the flower.
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