Tapis de Tulipes

Every year, the Brussels commune of Anderlecht has a "carpet of tulips" in Place de Linde: I had never been to see it before this year and was a bit disappointed, I was expecting something like the flower carpet we have in the Grand' Place every other year. The blue flowers aren't tulips anyway, but hyacinths - you could almost smell your way there from the metro station (St. Guidon)!

Living in the Low Countries (of course the Netherlands is the place to see the best displays, e.g. Keukenhof), tulips seem quite commonplace but in fact they are rather exotic, their name comes from the Persian for "turban" and they originally came to Europe from Turkey - although apparently the Turks call them lilies! I don't know any poems about tulips, unless you count this:

I threw my love a tulip,
She caught it in her teeth.
She threw me back my tulip,
I threw her back her teeth.