Tulip, flame pattern
Tulipa sp.
Tulip · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 20 April 2025

Streaks of green breaking up through orange and yellow - a "flaming" pattern bred deliberately into modern tulips.
It was once caused by a virus, spread by aphids, and prized for exactly this effect during the Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s, when a single broken bulb could change hands for the price of a house. The virus also weakened the bulb, which is why the famous varieties all eventually died out and the pattern had to be bred back in without it.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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