Late tulip

Description

Tulipa urumiensis, the late tulip or tardy tulip, is a species of flowering plant in the family Liliaceae. It is a perennial growing from a bulb. By some sources the accepted name is Tulipa tarda. It has a leathery tunic that is glabrous on the inside.It has up to seven linear green leaves that can be up to 20 cm long. The stem is between 4 and 20 cm long. The yellow flowers have white tips, anthers and stamen are yellow. Tulipa urumiensis is native to central Asia, growing in rocky subalpine meadows in the Tian Shan. It was confused with Tulipa dasystemon for a long time, and only scientifically described in 1932 by Otto Stapf and again as T. tarda in 1933. The plant blooms in late April and early May in the Northern Hemisphere The plant was accorded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit in 1993. Tulips (Tulipa) are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly colored, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm colors). They often have a different colored blotch at the base of the tepals (petals and sepals, collectively), internally. Because of a degree of variability within the populations, and a long history of cultivation, classification has been complex and controversial. The tulip is a member of the lily family, Liliaceae, along with 14 other genera, where it is most closely related to Amana, Erythronium and Gagea in the tribe Lilieae. There are about 75 species, and these are divided among four subgenera. The name "tulip" is thought to be derived from a Persian word for turban, which it may have been thought to resemble by those who discovered it. Tulips originally were found in a band stretching from Southern Europe to Central Asia, but since the seventeenth century have become widely naturalised and cultivated (see map). In their natural state they are adapted to steppes and mountainous areas with temperate climates. Flowering in the spring, they become dormant in the summer once the flowers and leaves die back, emerging above ground as a shoot from the underground bulb in early spring.