Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the Tulipa genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly colored, generally red, but can be orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different colored blotch at the base of the tepals, internally. Because of a degree of variability within the populations and a long history of cultivation, classification has been complex and controversial. The tulip is a member of the lily family, Liliaceae, along with 14 other genera, where it is most closely related to Amana, Erythronium, and Gagea.

There are about 75 species in the genus Tulipa genera, originally found in a band stretching from Southern Europe to Central Asia, but since the seventeenth century have become widely naturalized and cultivated throughout most all of Europe. In their natural state, they are adapted to steppes and mountainous areas with temperate climates. Flowering in the spring, they become dormant in the summer once the flowers and leaves die back, emerging above ground as a shoot from the underground bulb in early spring.

Breeding programmes have produced thousands of hybrid and cultivars in addition to the original species (known in horticulture as botanical tulips). They are popular throughout the world, both as ornamental garden plants and as cut flowers.

The T.gesneriana is an upright, bulbous perennial with broadly lance-shaped, grey-green leaves and a sturdy, erect stem bearing a single, bright red flower in mid to late spring.