Interestingly, the tulip is not native to Dutch countries. Historians believe the tulip probably originated on land somewhere between Northern China and Southern Europe. The plants were soon cultivated in the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey) and then imported into Holland in the sixteenth century. In 1952, well-known Dutch horticulturist, Carolis Clusius, wrote the first major book about tulips. This created a huge interest in the flowers, pushing the tulip into popularity and thus, into what is known as ‘Tulip Mania’.‘Tulip Mania’ is considered to be the period of 1634 – 1637 when a single tulip bulb was sometimes worth as much as a house in Amsterdam! At the start, growing tulips became a favourite hobby of the wealthy. Because of this, the middle-class population would seek to own tulips since the flower became seen as a symbol of wealth and prosperity. Commoners quickly began to notice that the price of bulbs was driven up due to the fascination with the flower and began to use the phenomenon to their advantage.