A digital image of three Olympic Flame Tulips stretching and reaching toward a gorgeous blue sky. The image has had minimal editing done in Photoshop CS5.

Intersting trivia about the Olympic Flame Tulips: These origkinal tulips were named Rembrandt Tulips after the Dutch painter Rembrandt (1606 - 1669), who lived and worked in Holland at about the same time that tulips first became enormously popular. Actually Rembrandt himself is not known for painting flowers (!), but many other Dutch Masters of the time did include tulips in their paintings.

During this time, tulips became the rage in Holland, particularly the ones with streaks and stripes of color. These types of tulips were bought for huge sums during the so-called Tulipmania that occurred between 1593 and 1637. We now know that these unusual markings were actually caused by a virus, which eventually caused damage to the tulip bulbs. Because of this, the original Rembrandt Tulips are no longer sold commercially. However, there are quite a few modern, virus-free, Rembrandt "look-alike" tulips available. Olympic Flames, modern Rembrandts, are mutants of existing tulips, which additionally exhibit the stripes or streaks that are characteristic of Rembrandt Tulips.