2023 Tulip Blossoms Forever Postage Stamps Booklet First-Class

Each fall, millions of gardeners bury bulbs in the earth, eagerly anticipating the rewards that springtime will bring. Months later, thick green leaves poke through the soil, soon revealing their payload: tulip blossoms in spectacular variety from prim to ostentatious.

A member of the lily family (Lilliaceae), the tulip (genus Tulipa) originated as a wildflower in Central Asia. There, despite the dry, rocky environment, these tulip ancestors were able to survive because they could draw nourishment from the bulb. Over time, traders carried them west along the Silk Route to Persia, where cultivation of them is thought to have begun in the 10th century. By the 16th century, tulips were all the rage in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). The name “tulip,” in fact, derives from a Turkish version of the Persian word for “turban,” an allusion to the flower’s shape.