【正文】 Turkish nomad s who first discovered tulips and spread them slowly westward. Now, around the 16th century, Europeans were traveling to Istanbul and Turkey as merchants and diplomats . And the Turks often gave the Europeans tulip bulbs as gifts which they would carry home with them. For the Europeans, tulips were totally unheard of. Er…a great novelty. The first bulb to show up in the Netherlands, the merchant who received them roasted and ate them. He thought they were kind of onion. It turns out that the Netherlands was an ideal country for growing tulips. It had the right kind of sandy soil for one thing, but also, it was a wealthy nation with a growing economy, willing to spend lots of money on new exotic things. Plus, the Dutch had a history of gardening. Wealthy people would pete, spending enormous amounts of money to buy the rarest flowers for their gardens. Soon tulips were beginning to show up in different colors as growers tried to breed them specifically for colors which would make them even more valuable. But they were never pletely sure what they would get. Some of the most priced tulips were white with purple stricks, or red with yellow stricks on the paddles, even a dark purple tulip that was very much priced. What happened then was a craze for these specialized tulips. We called that craze “tulip mania”. So, here we?ve got all the conditions for an irrational boom: a prospering economy, so more people had more disposable inemoney to spend on luxuries, but they weren?t experienced at investing their new wealth. Then along es a thrilling modity. Sure the first specimens were just played right in tulips, but they could be bred into some extraordinary variations, like that dark purple tulip. And finally, you have an unregulated market place, no government constrains, where price could explode. And explode they did, starting in the 1630s. There was always much more demand for tulips than supply. Tulips didn?t bloom frequently like roses. Tulips bloomed once in the early spring. And that was it for the year. Eventually, speciallybred multi colored tulips became so valuable, well, according to records, one tulip bulb was worth 24 tons of wheat, or thousand pounds of cheese. One particular tulip bulb was sold and exchanged for a small sheep. In other words, tulips were literally worth their weight in gold. As demand grew, people began selling promissory notes guaranteeing the future delivery of priced tulip bulbs. The buyers of these pieces of paper would resell the notes and mark up prices. These promissory notes kept changing hands from buyer to buyer until the tulip was ready for delivery. But it was all pure speculation because as I said, there was no way to know if the bulb was really going to produce the variety, the color that was promised. But that didn?t matter to the owner of the note. The owner only cared about having that piece of paper so it could be traded later at a profit. And people were borrowing, mortgaging their homes in many cases to obtain those bits of paper because they were sure they?d find an easy way to make money. So now, you?ve got all the ingredients for a huge bust. And bust it did, when one cold February morning in 1637, a group of bulb traders got together and discovered that suddenly there were no bidders . Nobody wanted to buy. Panic spread like wild fire and the tulip market collapsed totally. Lecture Narrator Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class. Professor Ok, I have an interesting plant species to discuss with you today. Um…it?s a species of a very rare tree that grows in Australia, Eidothea hardeniana, but it?s better known as the Nightcap Oak. Now, it was discovered only very recently, just a few years ago. Um… it remained hidden for so long because it?s so rare. There are only about 200 of them in existence. They grow in a rain forest, in a mountain rage…range in the north part of New South Wales which is a…er… state in Australia. So just 200 individual trees in all. Now another interesting thing about the Nightcap Oak is that it is…it represents…er…a very old type…er…kind of tree that grew a hundred million years ago. Um, we found fossils that old that bear remarkable resemblance to the tree. So, it?s a primitive tree. A…a living fossil you might say. It?s relic from earlier times and it has survived all these years without much change. And it…it?s probably a kind of tree from which other trees that grow in Australia today evolved. Just to give you an idea of what we are talking about. Here?s a picture of the leaves of the tree and its flowers. I don?t know how well you can see the flowers. They?re those little clusters sitting at the base of the leaves. Okay, what have we tried to find out about the tree since we?ve discovered it? Hum…or how…why is…is it so rare? That?s one of the first questions. Um… how is it…um…h(huán)ow d oes it reproduce? This