Tulipa ostrowskiana

Raised from the stock collected many years ago in Central Asia by Paul Graeber for the Dutch firm of Van Tubergen.

The flowers are brilliant, glowing scarlet- to orange-red sometimes with a jet-black centre, sometimes with a yellow centre. At flowering the plant is only 5cm high, but it carries a flower with a diameter of 5-8cm! Afterwards the leaves elongate and these are decorative, with a glaucous surface and an undulate edge.

Despite being in cultivation for a century this is still a vigorous true form of the species.