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Mention tulips, and few of us think of scimitars and Suleiman the Magnificent. But before the Dutch began breeding the flower as the zaftig blossoms we know today, the tulip was a tiny gemlike bloom that filled gardens of the Ottoman empire, its likeness woven into rugs and fired into ceramics. Travelers to Turkey still find mosques graced with their effigy, and flower beds along the Bosporus are full of them.
American gardeners are increasingly succumbing to the charm of these demure flowers, variously referred to as species,…