Broken Tulips Today
Today, tulips like Rem's Sensation displaying a "broken" effect are stable variants and the result of breeding, not viral infection, although many tulip fanciers feel these "modern" variants are a poor substitute when compared to the long-extinct rare cultivars like Semper Augustus. Modern tulip varieties infected with the virus are fragile, and are usually much smaller than normal healthy blooms, with a reduced stem length. There are only a few varieties of older, truly "broken" tulips still in existence, but only because the worst aspects of the virus have somehow remained benign. One such example is the rare Absalon which dates from 1780; a "bizarre" colored variety, it displays gold flames against a dark chocolate brown background.
Read more about this topic: Tulip Breaking Virus
Famous quotes containing the words broken, tulips and/or today:
“Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves—that’s the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives—experiences so great and moving that it doesn’t seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will in fifty years’ time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.”
—Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)