We all know that Tulips originate not from Holland but from the far-reaching Ottoman Empire. Much has been written about that provenance, and it's particularly relevant to the history of this Horned Tulip. It was described in Europe already in 1753 by great Carolus Linnaeus, who named it for polymath and naturalist Conrad Gesner (1516-1565). He writes that it comes from Cappadocia and was brought to Europe in 1559. Possibly, I might add, through the efforts of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522-1592), 'Austrian' diplomat to the Ottomans.
A quarter of a century before Linnaeus's description - during the bizarrely luxurious reign of Sultan Ahmed III (1673-1736) between 1703 and 1730 - Ottoman Tulip Craze frilled to a frenzy. That's testified to by a court painter Mehmet, who gives exquisite pictures of some 50 Tulips in his Osmanlı lalesi or Lale mecmuasi of 1725. Many of his flowers boast frills and filaments and quaintness not often seen in Tulips. One of these is this Tulipa acuminata.
I don't know when it was first cultivated in European gardens. But in 1876 Henry Harpur-Crewe (1828-1883), an English theological naturalist, waxes eloquent: "T. acuminata cornuta, with its strange narrow parti-coloured petals, is so quaint and curious that no one who has once grown it likes to be without it".
Here it's a staple of the Amsterdam Botanical Garden.
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