TULIPA GOULIMYI

The flora of Greece is among the richest and most interesting in Europe. According to the latest count (June 2018), it comprises 5,837 species and 1,985 subspecies of Vascular Plants, of which 1,103 species (18.4%) and 456 subspecies (23.1%) are endemic, i.e. restricted to Greece and occurring naturally nowhere else in the world. Goulimis’s tulip (Tulipa goulimyi) was discovered in 1954 by Constantine Goulimis and described in 1955 by British botanists J.R. Sealy and W.B. Turrill, who gave it his name. Its distribution is limited to the southeastern Peloponnese, the islands of Elafonissos, Kythera (where it is quite common) and Antikythera, as well as northwestern Crete (where it is very rare). It typically occurs at low elevations (0-600 m.), mainly among phrygana and on stony, gravelly or sandy ground. This tulip’s key characteristic is that its bulb tunics bear copious wool of brownish hairs inside. It flowers from late March until early May. Its flower is usually bright red, but in rare cases may even be yellow. The species has been classified as “Vulnerable” (VU) in the first Red Data Book of Rare and Threatened Plants of Greece according to the rules of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).