92 | March• 2018
WALL STREET OF FLOWERS
mainstay of the country’s economic
life, and it plays an important role as
the cornerstone on which the Nether-
land’s leadership as the largest pur-
veyor of plants and seeds in the world
is built. It all takes place at Royal Flo-
raHolland, the world’s largest flower
auction company, where today more
than half of the world’s flowers move
from grower to distributor and then
on to the retail customer. It is
indeed the Netherland’s ‘Wall Street
for Flowers’.
Beauty Meets Business
Royal FloraHolland is a showcase for
Dutch expertise in logistics. More than
12 billion plants and flowers – includ-
ing more than 90 per cent of the
Netherland’s own output
- change hands each
year at Royal Flo-
raHolland’s four
marketplaces
throughout the
country. The
contribution to
the Netherland’s
economy is pro-
found: more than
Tulip bulbs were given to visiting
dignitaries by the sultan of the Otto-
man Empire, with the plants first culti-
vated in the Netherlands in 1593. The
name ‘tulip’ derives from ‘tulibend’,
the name of the turban worn in the
area (now modern Turkey) because
of the supposed resemblance of the
flower to a turban.
Tulips have long been a force in
the Dutch economy, and were even
the source of the world’s first ‘invest-
ment bubble’. Back in the early-17th
century, the tulip’s value escalated so
precipitously that one bulb could cost
as much as a house. Then, in 1637,
thousands of people lost everything
when a plant virus brought the whole
value system crashing down
Cartoons depicting this
folly can be found in
Dutch galleries as, in
the years following,
artists added tulips
to their paintings
as an aside com-
mentary meaning
‘foolish’.
Today the tulip
continues as a
T
hink of the Netherlands and the enduring
images that come to mind are windmills,
wooden clogs and... tulips. But tulips are not
indigenous to the tiny nation. They come from
- depending on whom you talk to – somewhere
in Central Asia, Kazakhstan or Afghanistan.
ing
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PHOTOS: iSTOCK
