6
The Broken Tulip
An understanding of the tulip markets requires some information about the nature of the tulip. A bulb flower, the tulip can propagate either through seeds or through buds that form on the mother bulb. Properly cultivated, the buds can directly reproduce another bulb. Each bulb, after planting, eventually disappears during the growing season. By the end of the season, the original bulb is replaced by a clone, the primary bud, which is now a functioning bulb, and by a few secondary buds. Asexual reproduction through buds, the principal propagation method, produces an increase in bulbs at a maximum annual rate of from 100 to 150 percent in normal bulbs.9 A bulb produced directly from seed requires seven to twelve years before it flowers. The flowers appear in April or May and last for about a week. The amount of time required before the secondary buds flower depends on the size of the bulb produced from the bud. Hartman and Kester (1983) state that the time before flowering of a bulb less than 5 cm. in diameter is three years, of a bulb
