New species of inverted tulip discovered

A new species of the inverted tulip plant has come to light in the Karakoçan district of the eastern province of Elazığ.

Veysel Sonay, a postgraduate student at Şanlıurfa Harran University's Biology Department, saw that the flower he came across in Elazığ during his field studies was looking different from other species.

Sonay then shared the specimen on a social media group of plant lovers. Seeing the photographs, Prof. Dr. Hasan Yıldırım, a faculty member at Ege University, contacted Sonay about the possibility of this plant being a new reverse tulip species.

Consequently, experts and academics from several universities conducted detailed studies on the plant and concluded that this inverted tulip discovered in Karakoçan is, in fact, a new species.

As a result of the studies, the experts stated that the new species differs from the other species with the internal organs of the flower, fruit and leaves' structure, and their article was published in the Finland-based Nordic Journal of Botany June issue this year.

Stating that Türkiye has a wide range of reverse tulips, Yıldırım said there are around 170 species of reverse tulips in the world.

"We are the country harboring the highest number of reverse tulip species in the world. We are also at a very important point in terms of the number of endemics as 26 of 49 reverse tulip species in this region are endemic."

Noting that this new species, which has been named "Karakoçan tulip," is mostly seen in early spring, Yıldırım said that they are bulbous tuberous plants, in the form of inverted tulips with a bent neck and yellow-colored tips on a brown reddish texture.