Thinking about the unique tulips that Dall-E 2 has generated (some of them are in Carnivorous Tulips), I was inspired to do some research on the tulip breeding process. How long does it take? How many steps am I skipping by prompting Dall-E to imagine new breeds? Does this have any applications to the tulip industry?

Most tulips, like most plants, are diploids, which means they have two complete sets of chromosomes. In recent times, plant breeders have developed special techniques that allow them to add extra chromosomes, creating plants called Tetraploids. Extra genetic material gives plants an advantage. These “super hybrids” are typically stronger growers and better bloomers.

https://blog.longfield-gardens.com/breeding-a-better-tulip/

While I couldn’t find an exact match for my AI tulip, I did find a partial match in “Tulipa Triumph ‘Key West Mixture’ - Ruigrok Flowerbulbs”:

Tulip bulbs for breeding are harvested after plants are cut down.

Additionally, now that hybridisation is mechanised and no longer done by hand, new bulbs have to be much stronger than in the past.

From https://amsterdamtulipmuseum.com/topics/lorem-ipsum-tulip/

The hybrid bulbs are planted, then manual pollination occurs with cotton swabs. Seed pods are harvested and planted the next spring.

This selection process can take another two or three years. After four or five years, the bulb is large enough to produce its own flower.

My generated tulip image appears to be a Darwin Hybrid, bred by “Dirk Lefeber, who crossed 19th century Darwins with Tulipa Fosteriana.”

Lefeber was from the Netherlands, which explains why this is documented in the Amsterdam Tulip Museum.

From this gardenia.net page, there are several varietals that may be a close IRL match for the generated image:

Needs more research

Need to check sources for this story, but I found an interesting tidbit that could be a parallel for modern day AI / NFT / web3 craze:

There are old tales of the poor spending life savings on tulips and the flower completely took control of society. However, when too many people were attempting to sell the bulbs, but not many were buying, this caused the market to crash in the 17th century and left the Dutch extremely hesitant about investing in the flower for a long time.

I’m concerned about the variety of flowers we can generate artificially now—will there be a similar market crash due to the flood of new art? This is a general question, not just about tulips anymore.