Tulip | Description, Flower, Cultivation, & Facts | Britannica

Home » What Do Tulip Leaves Look Like » Tulip | Description, Flower, Cultivation, & Facts | Britannica

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Physical description

tulip flower
tulip flowerA tulip (Tulipa species) flower with six brown stamens surrounding a central three-lobed stigma.(more)

Tulips are perennial plants that die back after flowering and persist as an underground storage bulb. When it emerges in the spring, the tulip produces two to six thick bluish green leaves that are clustered at the base of the plant. The usually solitary bell-shaped flowers typically have three petals and three petal-like sepals. There are six free stamens (pollen-producing structures), and the three-lobed ovary is terminated by a sessile three-lobed stigma, which receives the pollen to fertilize the ovules. The fruit is a capsule with many seeds. Many garden tulips can be propagated only by their scaly bulbs.

garden tulips
garden tulipsTulips (Tulipa species) emerging from bulbs in the spring.(more)

Tulip flowers occur in a wide range of colors except true blue—from purest white through all shades of yellow and red to brown and deepest purple to almost black. Generally, solid-colored tulips are spoken of as “self-colored,” while streaked blossoms are called “broken.” The phenomenon of color streaks in tulips is the result of a harmless virus infection that causes the self color to disappear in certain zonal patterns, leaving the flower’s white or yellow underlying color to show through in irregular streaks.

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