Tulips of Southern Kazakhstan.

“I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun. I have heard them called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself, only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not be afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face.” 

Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden.

Tulips tour in Kazakhstan.

The historical information of a tulip of Albert (Albert қызғалдағы). The tulip is described in 1877 by E.L.Regel on samples whom it has collected in mountains Karatau its son Albert Regel who worked as the doctor in a Kuldzha with 1876 for 1885 collected plants under orders of the Petersburg botanical garden. Its name names this and other kinds. The type is stored in herbariums of Botanical institute of the Russian Academy of Science (St.-Petersburg).
12 - 20 cm tall, ovoid bulb, 2 - 3 cm in diameter, with coriaceous, dark-brown, slightly prolonged, with hairy tunic inside (denser at the top). Stem with flower-bearing stem is pubescent at the top; leaves 3 - 4, deflexed, connivent, very glaucous, pubescent, more or less ciliated and curled at the edges, quickly disappearing upwards, often exceeding the flowers, the lower is broad oblong or nearly elliptic, 3 - 7 cm in width.
One flower. Perianth lobes are red, crimson or bright yellow, yellow at groundwork, sometimes with black spots, the outer are 3,5 - 6 cm long, a bit longer than inner, pubescent on the outside, more or less narrowed to lanuginous deflected point, oboblong, the inner are inversely triangular-ovate, cuneiform at the base, concave, sinuate above; stamens are 2 - 3 times shorter of perianth; their filaments are bare, yellow, yellow anthers are a little longer than filaments; ovary is little shorter than stamens, greenish, with sessile stigma; fruit case is 2 - 2,5 cm wide and 3 - 5 cm long.
Flowering time in April - May.
Distribution in Kazakhstan: Endemic. It grows on detritus slopes of low-mountains; occurs in the east of Balkhash-Alakul floristic area, Chu-Ili Mountains, in the south of Betpakdala, in Karatau Mountains and Zakaratau Low-hills.Registered in the Red Book of Kazakhstan.

Authority:
From the sanction Vladimir Kolbinsev. "Tulips of Kazakhstan".

Photos
Alexander Petrov.