The Dutch know how to launch a new flower. Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, wife of Willem-Alexander, Crown Prince of Orange, baptized Holland’s newest tulip last week at a ceremony in Manhattan’s Battery Park. On the site of the fort that once guarded the young colony of New Amsterdam, the Dutch royal couple joined a crowd of New York dignitaries for the official naming ceremony for Tulipa ‘Henry Hudson’ named in honor of the 400th anniversary of explorer Henry Hudson’s discovery of Manhattan Island and the river that bears his name, which led to the founding of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.

Princess Maxima of the Netherlands pours champagne to baptize Tulipa ‘Henry Hudson’ during the tulip's naming ceremony in Manhattan's Battery Park. The naming was part of NY400 Week honoring the 400th anniversary of Hudson’s discovery of New York and celebrating the ties between the Netherlands and the U.S. Left to right: Frans Roozen, of the International Flower Bulb Center (IFBC), Hillegom, NL; the Princess; Lucas Boreel, of the IFBC, Jan van der Zijden, representing the Dutch flower bulb sector.

The ceremony was part of NY400, a joint Dutch-American celebration of the shared history of New York City and the City of Amsterdam. The royal couple also presented the City of New York with a gift of 120,000 flower bulbs to be planted in the city’s five boroughs, Battery Park and the Hudson River Park this fall. Accepting the gifts were Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City; Adrian Benepe, parks commissioner; Diana Taylor, chairwoman of the Hudson River Park Trust; William Rudin, chairman of the board of the Battery Conservancy; and Warrie Price, founder and president of the Battery Park Conservancy.

Tulipa vvedenskyi ‘Henry Hudson’ is an orange species tulip bred by The Institute of Horticultural Plant Breeding (IVT) in Wageningen, the Netherlands. The bulbs were grown by grower Piet Apeldoorn, of Th. Apeldoorn, Egmond-Binnen, the Netherlands. As with all tulips, the bulbs of Tulipa ‘Henry Hudson’ are planted in fall to bloom the following spring.

Tulipa vvedenskyi ‘Henry Hudson.’

Signing the naming certificate were Princess Maxima and Mr. Jan van der Zijden, representing the Dutch Flower Bulb sector. The tulip will be officially and permanently listed in International Register of Tulips maintained by the Royal General Bulb Growers Association of the Netherlands.

Henry Hudson was the English captain hired to helm the Dutch East India Company ship Halve Maen (Half Moon) on an expedition to search out a new passage to the Orient. In the fall of 1609 he sailed into New York harbor where he landed on Manhattan Island, and then traveled up the Hudson as far as present-day Albany. His explorations established a Dutch claim to the area and paved the way for their colonization of southern New York as the colony of New Amsterdam. On a subsequent voyage in 1610 in the ship Discovery, Hudson explored the coast of Greenland and discovered the Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada, the second largest bay in the world after the Bay of Bengal.