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10 - Orono Weekly Times 1937 - 2012 · Celebrating 75 Years Wednesday, February 1, 2012 Basic Black by Arthur Black Flower power Do you know anybody named Rose? It would be no contest if I'd asked you that question a century ago. Back in the early 1900s, one out of every eighteen newborn girls was dubbed Rose. It was the 18th most popular name you could give a girl child back then but it's been fluttering downward like a maple leaf in autumn ever since. Today it's the 352nd choice, `way behind Tiffany, Madison and Samantha -and even other floral appellations like Iris, Daisy, Violet and Lily. As for boys, not too many are named after flowers. (I know a small time dealer who answers to B.C. Bud, but that hardly counts). It's not surprising parents lean to flowers when it comes to naming their daughters. Flowers are soft and unthreatening, nurturing to birds and insects, graceful, fragrant... and the gods never made an ugly one. They did, however, bestow one upon us that made people crazy for a time. We call it the tulip. It was discovered by explorers in Asia back in the 1500s. Bulbs of the strange plant were carefully dug up, packed in straw and transported by caravan and ship to the Netherlands. It was love at first sight for Dutch farmers and the Netherlands just happened to provide the perfect combination of soil and temperature for the new plant to thrive. Dutch growers fell on their knees (not to mention all over themselves) in their haste to plant and cultivate more bulbs and varieties. By the 17th Century, tulip bulbs were being bought and sold in downtown Amsterdam like pork bellies and crude oil stocks on the NYSE. Tulipmania had struck with a vengeance and the fever grew like wildfire. In 1637, it reached its peak when a single bulb of one variety sold for 5,200 guilders. In 1637, you could buy a mansion in Amsterdam for that kind of money. And then the fever broke. Somebody, somewhere, gave his head a shake and muttered the Dutch equivalent of: "Hold on a minute ­ we're talking about flower bulbs here!" The market crashed like a house built of rose petals; fortunes were lost. The tulip went back to being a garden variety flower. Well, not quite. The Dutch may have been temporarily crazy but they weren't long-range stupid. They continued to grow tulips and to develop new varieties. Eventually the Netherlands developed auction houses and pretty much took over the global market for the tulip trade. Last year they produced 3 billion bulbs and exported 2 billion cut tulips. Together the Dutch auction houses handle about $300 million worth of tulip sales annually. Back in 1637 that kind of money would have bought a whole lot of mansions in Amsterdam. Tulip never became a popular girl's name ­ it's not even in the top hundred ­ but it is the third most popular flower in the world. The best-selling flower on the planet is ­ no surprise ­ the rose. In fact it's so popular that there is one variety that's named after a woman instead of the other way around. It's a hybrid tea rose called the Dolly Parton rose. It is distinguished by (surprise) large, magnificent double blooms. The second most popular flower in the world? According to Google, it's the chrysanthemum. The chrysanthemum? Hold on a second. Nobody ever named their kid Chrysanthemum. True, but the late great P.G. Wodehouse once used the flower to get off a good line. Looking at a shaggyheaded university student, he sniffed: "Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum." 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