Tulip:

Over a thousand years ago, Tulips grew wild in Persia, and near Kabul the Great Mogul Baber counted thirty-three different species. The word tulip is thought to be a corruption of the Turkish word for turbans. Persian poets sang its praises, and their artists drew and painted it so often, that all of Europe considered the tulip to be the symbol of the Ottoman Empire.
There are people in the world who eat some varieties tulip bulbs, and Japan makes a flour from them. The Dutch have eaten tulip bulbs when no other food was available.
Wealthy people began to purchase tulip bulbs that were brought back from Turkey by Venetian merchants. In 1610, fashionable French ladies wore corsages of tulips, and many fabrics were decorated with tulip designs. In the seventeenth century, a small bed of tulips was valued at 15,000-20,000 francs. The bulbs became a currency, and their value was quoted like stocks and shares.
Tulipmania flourished between 1634-1637… just like the California Gold Rush, people abandoned jobs, businesses, wives, homes and lovers to become tulip growers. The frenzy spread from France, through Europe to the Low Countries.
It is recorded that a Dutchman paid thirty-six bushels of wheat, seventy-two of rice, four oxen, twelve sheep, eight pigs, two barrels of wine and four of beer, two tons of butter, a thousands pounds of cheese, a bed, clothes, and a silver cup… for one Vice-Roi bulb! Hopefully he didn’t eat it.
The crazed population was obsessed beyond reason. Records show one buyer paying twelve acres of land, another buyer paying with his new carriage and twelve horses. The best story… after paying for a bulb with its weight in gold, the new owner heard that a cobbler possessed the same variety. He bought the cobbler’s bulb and crushed it, to increase the value of his first bulb.
The Dutch shipped hundreds of thousands of tulip bulbs to Ottawa, Canada, after World War II to show their gratitude to Canadian soldiers for freeing Holland from the German occupation, and for welcoming Queen Maria to reside in Ottawa while the war raged on.
Aztecs used Dahlias as a treatment for epilepsy
The wealthy speculated on tulip shares. [The word bourse is derived from the mania… speculators held their meetings at the house of the noble family, Van Bourse.] Most of the bulbs were grown in Flanders by monks. Bulbs were traded like stock using paper representation of ownership. About ten million bulbs were represented in the market. In 1637, speculation became illegal, many people, especially in Holland, were ruined as prices fell.
An eighteenth century manuscript notes that the Sheik Mohammed Lalizare, official tulip grower of Ahmed(1703-1730) counted 1,323 varieties. Tulips are still popular and there are many exotic varieties that we enjoy in our gardens.