At the right I've gone into a tulip blossom so you can see the main parts up close. The pale greenish, cylindrical item with three little curved-back doodads atop it at the right in the picture is the female pistil, as described on our Standard Blossom Page. The green part is the ovary, in which seeds will form, and the curved-back doodads at the top is the 3-lobed stigma. Since the ovary arises from above the calyx and corolla this is a classic superior ovary.

The slender, purple item atop a black stem in the picture's center is the male stamen. The purple thing at the top is the pollen-producing anther, while the black stem is the filament. Tulip flowers have one pistil arising in their centers, with 6 stamens arising from around the pistil's base.

With tulip flowers, instead of speaking of the calyx and corolla, we use the special term perianth, which is used to mean the calyx and corolla considered together, when the two things are not clearly distinguishable. In other words, the "sepals" look just like the "petals."

Therefore, we can say that the perianth segments of the flower in the picture are red, with black bases edged with yellow.

Garden tulips come in such variety and are so pretty and interesting that special words have come into use just for talking about them. These include:

• "Botanical tulips" are those species other than the above-mentioned Tulipa gesneriana and Tulipa suaveolens

• "Selfs" or "breeders" are tulip blossoms in solid colors

• "Broken" blossoms are those with mixed colors

• "Bybloems" are blossoms with the under color being white, with markings of lilac or purple

• "Bizarres" are blossoms with an under color of yellow, and markings of red to brown

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