Washington, D.C. ? Perhaps you have forgotten the tale of tulipmania. The tulip craze that gripped Holland in the 1630s was an awfully long time ago, but the human desire that fueled it — namely a lust for (illusory) wealth — lives on gloriously.

In 17th-century Holland, tulips were still exotic and coveted, so aristocrats and merchants paid handsomely for the rarest varieties. Then the speculators moved in and figured out they could whip up the market and bring many more mugs into the game by selling shares and futures in the bulbs. The scheme worked for as long as prices were rising and demand outstripped supply. In 1633, a house exchanged hands for three bulbs. The bubble was fully inflated by Feb. 5, 1637, when an auction of 99 bulbs raised 90,000 guilders. By comparison, Rembrandt received 1,600 guilders for his masterpiece “The Night Watch.”

The “pop” heard around the polders occurred the same month that jittery buyers failed to bid at an auction in Haarlem. Those who had borrowed to invest in shares found themselves ruined. Here’s another interesting parallel between tulipmania and our current economic mess: The most coveted bulbs had bicolored petals whose patterns danced like flames or feathers. Scientists later discovered that this was due to a virus transmitted by aphids. Talk about toxic assets.

Just as tulips were once a vehicle of misery, today they have the capacity to lift our spirits because we have learned to love them for their own sake. The Dutch went on to perfect the mass production of tulip bulbs and have bred some beauties in recent decades. They now cost less than $1 apiece.

The tulip hunt

In search of pure tulip worship, I drove 150 miles south of Washington to the bulb fields of Brent and Becky Heath, whose nursery in Gloucester, Va., has long championed that most regal of spring bulbs. In the fields of his waterside home, as well as in the public display garden at the company offices and greenhouses a mile away, Brent Heath introduced me to some stupendous tulips and reacquainted me with some old favorites.

Growers group tulips by more than a dozen types, such as Darwin hybrid, Lily Flowered or Single Late, but it’s more useful to think of them as falling into two categories. The species types, identical or close to wild tulips, tend to be low-growing and early, and will return reliably year after year if they are planted in a sunny location with extremely good drainage. They are demure but lovely. The others are highly bred varieties that are larger, showier and more colorful. However, they don’t thrive in our soils and climate, and are best treated as annuals. Yank ’em out in May, grab a catalog for next year’s bulbs and think about ordering afresh for fall delivery.

Brown Sugar

Let’s cut to the chase. The tulip of the season for me — and for Brent Heath as it turns out — is a Triumph variety named Brown Sugar. “This is my new all-time favorite tulip,” he says, bending over to pull it out of the ground, bulb and all. It has a lot going for it: Its large, chalice-like flower is tinged caramel and pink, which sounds like an awful combination but works. It gets more coffee-colored as it ages. The fragrance, a trait often overlooked in tulips and daffodils, is strong and spicy. I have never seen a thicker stem on a tulip. If any tulip could take an April thunderstorm, this is the one. “This will be in our catalog for next year,” Heath says.

More ideas

In beds awash with tulips, daffodils and other spring bulbs, it takes a star to stand out. I really like a Triumph named Gavota, with pointed petals and a strong maroon coloring edged with a thick margin of gold. Another stunner is Banja Luca, an upright, big Darwin hybrid with the sort of flamed petals (red on yellow) that got the early Dutch fanciers frothing at the mouth. The effect is achieved today, most notably in a class called Rembrandt tulips, through breeding and not the tulip breaking virus, as the disease is known.

If you are looking for more subtlety in a tulip, you can’t go wrong with Silverstream, which is a Darwin hybrid with a faint variegated leaf margin and a creamy flower with rose-colored speckles.

Of the humble species types, I have long grown and favored a clusiana tulip variety named Cynthia, which is delicate and colored a soft raspberry red and buttery yellow. It comes back reliably each April. Lady Jane is a larger form, red and white, and the petals are more pointed.

Heath groups it in a container with the muscari Valerie Finnis and the miniature daffodil Toto. It makes for an effusive floral party. And speaking of raves, Heath adores the clusiana hybrid named Peppermint Stick, which is the closest to the wild form. It opens to reveal a blue base. These varieties are all named after Carolus Clusius, the 16th-century diplomat who brought bulbs to Holland and started a mania raging for over four centuries.