What is the common name for Tulipa gesneriana?

The common name for Tulipa gesneriana is garden tulip.

This tall, late-flowering bulb is a cultivated ornamental in the lily family. It is also called Didier’s tulip, and botanists may write its name as Tulipa × gesneriana because it is a complex hybridized neo-species. Most modern tulip cultivars have ancestry connected to this plant.

Tulipa gesneriana was introduced to western Europe from Constantinople in the 16th century and was described by Conrad Gesner in 1559. Its cultivated descendants became central to Dutch horticulture and the tulip speculation known as tulip mania, which peaked between 1634 and 1637.

A common mix-up is treating “garden tulip” as a name for every tulip. It more specifically identifies this major cultivated species or group, while parrot tulips and Darwin tulips are horticultural types or cultivar groups, not alternative common names for the species.