教室レッスン・Tulips came from Turkey・🇹🇷 Turkey

Tulips came from Turkey

The flower most people think of as Dutch actually started here

Colourful tulips in a Turkish garden during the spring tulip festival

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

これは何?

Tulips are bright, cup-shaped spring flowers. Most people think tulips come from the Netherlands (Holland), because that is where so many are grown today. But tulips actually started out as wild flowers in the mountains of Turkey and Central Asia. They were a Turkish favourite for hundreds of years before they ever reached Europe.

もっと知りたい

Wild tulips grew on the hillsides of Turkey long before anyone planted them in gardens. The Ottomans - the rulers of Turkey hundreds of years ago - loved tulips so much that they grew them in palace gardens and painted them onto plates, tiles and clothes. The word 'tulip' even comes from the Turkish word 'tülbent', which means 'turban', because the flower looks a bit like one.

About 400 years ago, a few tulip bulbs were sent from Turkey to the Netherlands as a gift. The Dutch loved them. They started growing them everywhere. People got so excited that for a short time tulip bulbs were the most expensive thing in the country - one bulb could cost as much as a whole house. (We now call this 'tulip mania'.)

Today the Netherlands is the world's biggest tulip grower. But back in Turkey, tulips are still loved. Every year, Istanbul holds a giant tulip festival in spring. Around 30 million tulip bulbs are planted in the parks. The whole city is striped with red, pink, yellow and purple flowers for a few weeks.

So a flower most kids in Europe think of as Dutch began its journey in the mountains of Turkey. It is a great reminder that lots of things we think of as belonging to one place actually travelled around the world to get there.

教室では

15分でクラス全体に説明できます。

一緒に話し合う

話し合いのための問いかけ

  1. 01What other foods or plants do you think of as belonging to one country - but might actually come from somewhere else?
  2. 02Why do you think people once paid as much for a flower as for a house?
  3. 03If you were going to send one plant or food from your country as a gift to another, what would you choose?
やってみよう

教室アクティビティ

As a class, list five things that you think of as 'from' your country (a food, a plant, a sport, a song). Then look up where each one actually started. Are there any surprises?