Are harlequin tulips common?

Posts

• Uff Posts: 3,199

  May 2022

  I must admit that I've never seen anything like that before either the shape or the colour. 

  SW SCOTLAND but born in Derbyshire

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• JennyJ Posts: 10,576

  May 2022

  I haven't seen anything like that in a tulip but I have a chrysanthemum that occasionally produces a shoot with flowers half yellow and half pink, divided across the middle (it's meant to be yellow), and occasionally shoots with all-pink flowers. I think it's a form of genetic mutation or partial reversion.

  Google found this, which looks a lot like yours so maybe that fringed yellow variety is prone to it https://www.dreamstime.com/unusually-colored-tulip-hybrid-mutation-brilliant-yellow-red-color-flower-one-kind-different-then-crowd-beautiful-image148672202
  

  Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  

  1
• fidgetbones Posts: 17,618

  May 2022

  Not in focus but you can see that one petal is purple and white, all the others are white. This was in a batch of purple tulips last year.
  

  
  

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• JennyJ Posts: 10,576

  May 2022

  I haven't seen anything like that in a tulip but I have a chrysanthemum that occasionally produces a shoot with flowers half yellow and half pink, divided across the middle (it's meant to be yellow), and occasionally shoots with all-pink flowers. I think it's a form of genetic mutation or partial reversion.

  Google found this, which looks a lot like yours so maybe that fringed yellow variety is prone to it https://www.dreamstime.com/unusually-colored-tulip-hybrid-mutation-brilliant-yellow-red-color-flower-one-kind-different-then-crowd-beautiful-image148672202
  

  Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  

  1
• BenCotto Posts: 4,718

  May 2022

  There’s a discussion here if you’d like to read more
  
  https://www.rhs.org.uk/problems/bicoloured-flowers
  

  Rutland, England

  1