Exotic, expensive beauties that live only in still life

If you've ever taken a horticulturally-minded, beady-eyed look at some of the wonderful 17th- and 18th-century floral still-life paintings by Dutch artists such as Rachel Ruysch, Hans Bollongier or Jan van Huysem, you may have found yourself lusting after the extraordinary varieties of florist's tulips that are often featured, with their gloriously streaked, or marbled petals.

We now know that many – not all – of these strangely beautiful flowers were the result of the bulbs being infected by “tulip-breaking” viruses passed on by aphids, which weakened and eventually killed the plant. A famous example is ‘Semper Augustus’, a scarlet-and-white streaked variety of tulip so highly prized by Dutch traders in the early 17th century that a single bulb was worth many thousand guilders – enough to buy several Rembrandt paintings.

In this particular tulip’s case, nature had the last laugh: ‘Semper Augustus’ is long extinct, its flashy beauty known to modern gardeners only through centuries-old paintings and drawings.

But although they are seldom vigorous, not all "broken" tulips die as a result of virus infection. A few live on, known as "English Florist's Tulips" and are carefully nurtured by tulip fanciers. There's even a society – the Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society, dedicated to preserving these extravagantly decorative flowers as well as to breeding new ones.

These English florists tulips must conform to strict standards and are carefully categorised according to the way in which the virus expresses itself, whether “flamed” or “feathered”, as well as the precise shape of the flower.

Some have been in cultivation for centuries, such as the white-and-violet Habit de Noce, bred in 1780, whose flowers were captured on paper by the late Rory McEwen, the famous Scottish musician and botanical artist. Habit de Noce was just one of several English florist tulips painted by McEwen over the course of his lifetime (he died in 1982). Others include Sam Barlow, Julia Farnese and Columbine Breeder. In fact, such was his devotion to these intriguing flowers that McEwen eventually became a patron of Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society, which posthumously named a new "broken" tulip, bred by one of its members, after him.

McEwen also collaborated with the author Wilfred Blunt on a book, Tulips & Tulipomania. Published by Basilisk Press in 1977 as a limited edition of 500, it featured 16 of McEwen's ethereal paintings. Now a collector's item, I recently spotted a copy for sale on Abe Books for a mere US $6,000.

But if you’d like to see some of these exquisite flowers in the flesh rather than on paper, you’ll need to hotfoot it to the Harlow Carr Spring Festival, which closes tomorrow.

Alternatively, the society will be holding its 181st annual show in Norbury on May 14th. See tulipsociety.co.uk