Tulipomania - Mike Dash [101]
As for tulip mania—well, that is one virus that has never disappeared. It always was a purely human disease, one that fed on the complementary human emotions of appreciation of beauty and greed for money, and it still breaks out occasionally. There was, for example, a craze for dahlias in France around 1838. Like the tulip two centuries before, this flower was a relative newcomer to Europe, having been introduced from Mexico around 1790. It was soon taken up by horticulturists, who bred numerous new varieties, and the beauty of the new cultivated flowers won widespread acclaim; they were cited to disprove Rousseau’s contention that in the hands of man everything degenerates. For a short while dahlias fetched high prices; a bed of the flowers is said to have changed hands for seventy thousand francs,* and a single dahlia was exchanged for a fine diamond. Then fashions changed and the dahlia, like the tulip, faded from the history books. In 1912 it was the turn of Dutch gladioli to enjoy a very similar—but equally short-lived—boom.
The most recent manifestation of the old virus occurred as recently as 1985, when a mania broke out in China that followed the template of the tulip craze almost exactly. In this case speculation centered on yet another bulbous flower, the jun zi lan plant, or Lycoris radiata—the red spider lily. This lily grows small, funnel-shaped flowers that coil together like a tangled skein of wool. Tremendously long, curved stamens project far beyond the leaves to give the plant a delicious air of delicacy. The spider lily originated in Africa but came to China in the 1930s and was cultivated extensively in the Manchurian city of Ch’ang-ch’un. It was at first a favorite of the old ruling classes of the city, and for a while it was a mark of distinction for a patrician family to grow several different varieties of jun zi lan. The Communist takeover put a stop to the small market for bulbs that had evolved by the end of the 1940s, but the spider lily remained very popular and was eventually designated the official flower of Ch’ang-ch’un. By 1980 it was estimated that half of all the families in the city grew it.
A jun zi lan mania broke out in earnest only a few years later, when the Chinese government allowed a few modest economic reforms. The situation in Ch’ang-ch’un was then quite similar to that in Holland during the 1630s. Entrepreneurial activity was encouraged, but while there was plenty of desire to make money and an abundance of energy to tap, there were very few opportunities to invest any surplus cash. In these circumstances, the spider lily growers of the city took advantage of the growing demand for their flowers from neighboring regions, and as prices began their inevitable rise,* speculation in jun zi lan bulbs followed right behind.
In 1981 or 1982, spider lily bulbs were selling for 100 yuan, about $20. This was already a substantial sum, given the low annual salaries prevalent in China. But by 1985 bulbs of the most coveted varieties are reported to have changed hands for the astronomical amount of 200,000 yuan, or about $50,000, an amount that puts even the sums paid at the height of the Dutch tulip craze to shame. Thus, while Semper Augustus at its peak might have commanded between five and ten thousand guilders a bulb, which was four to eight times the income of a well-off merchant, the highest prices quoted during the jun zi lan mania were equivalent to no less than three hundred times the annual earnings of the typical Chinese university graduate—quite a staggering sum.
In such circumstances it is unsurprising that the spider lily craze was short-lived even by the standards of flower manias. It collapsed in the summer of 1985, apparently because confidence in the fledgling trade had been undermined by a series of critical newspaper articles that described the speculation in bulbs as madness. The whole lily bulb market was quickly flooded with panicked dealers desperate to sell, and bulb prices fell sharply. Just as the Chinese boom had exceeded even the heights attained during