The first description in European botanical literature, was by Conrad Gesner in his De Hortus Germanica (1561), which he referred to as Tulipa turcarum, and states he saw in a garden in Augsburg in 1559.
Tulipa is a genus of the Liliaceae (lily) family, once one of the largest family of monocots, but which molecular phylogenetics has shown to be a much smaller discrete family with only 15 genera.
Some species with a more eastern distribution (China, Korea, Japan) formerly classified as Tulipa are now considered as the separate genus Amana, including Amana edulis (Tulipa edulis).These species are more closely allied to Erythronium,although some authors believe that all three genera of the Tulipeae could be treated as a single genus.
The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, yellow, or white. They often have a different coloured blotch at the base of the tepals (petals and sepals, collectively), internally.