The seed heads had stood proudly in my pen pot for months, maybe a year. Two paper-headed stems, rattling mutely to themselves when moved.
Like a whale’s mouth, the corners of the outside panels are sheathed in filament, tiny hairs knitting together. The Little Shop of Horrors with gaping lips and hair-toothed openings.
The skin is stretched tight over the framework, yellowing and dotted like old parchment, and while I could hear there were seeds inside, I hadn’t thought to investigate further. Then one day, at the limits of prevaricating, I looked up the plant which had produced these rattling heads: a species Tulip.
The cultivar now lost to recollection, it’s appropriate these belong to Tulipa Division 15, the miscellaneous group of species tulips, their cultivars and any others which don’t fit neatly into any other group. Thankfully, advice on sowing sprengeri and sylvestris seemed similar enough, and the Iran Tulip too, urumiensis.
The seeds are far from fresh but they rattled free eventually, thin mid-brown discs the same shape as pepper seeds. The pot is sitting in the cold frame now, and come March I’ll try a batch indoors with some help from the fridge.
And hopefully, then, in 4-7 years there’ll be a flower or two to tell what it is. My fingers are crossed for something subtle, turkestanica, or orphanidea perhaps. But if it’s primary red and yellow, then I’ll learn to love that too.
a year in the garden 