Tulipa saxatilis - Rock Tulip - (Liliaceae)

The Rock Tulip grows in large patches, sometimes with many more leaves than flowers although the flowers can be more numerous in some seasons than others.

Rock Tulip

Picture by kind permission of Anne Horsfall

Tulips are members of the Lily (Lilaceae) family and this one, as its name suggests, colonises rocky places and gullies but also farmland and field margins. Rock Tulip blooms from March to April and can be found in Crete and southwest Turkey; it has also become naturalised in Italy.

The photograph shown here was taken in Crete.