Tulipa, (Tulip), c1840-1880. Originally cultivated in the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey), tulips were imported into Holland in the sixteenth century. In the mid-seventeenth century, tulips were so popular that they created the first economic bubble, known as "Tulip Mania" (tulipomania). As people bought up bulbs they became so expensive that they were used as money until the market in them crashed.