For generations, the high peaks and hidden valleys surrounding the historic city of Amasya in northern Türkiye have played host to an obsessive, quiet hunt. Academics, seasoned botanists, and foreign plant hunters have spent more than a century scouring the rugged terrain for Tulipa sprengeri, or the ‘Lost Turkish Tulip’ — a plant so rare that its documented existence in the wild abruptly ceased in 1896.
The search for the tulip came to an end earlier this year.
But the definitive breakthrough did not come from a university expedition or a heavily funded scientific project. Instead, history was made by Ercan Eftelioglu, a now-retired building janitor, who spends his weekends walking through the wilderness. By keeping his eyes closer to the soil than the rest of his hiking group, Eftelioglu achieved what the international botanical community had deemed impossible: he found the lost icon of Ottoman flora.
A lifelong bond with the soil
To understand how Ercan Eftelioglu succeeded where so many experts failed, one must look to his roots. Born in 1974 in the rural heartlands of Amasya, his deep relationship with the natural world began in early childhood.
“Because I was born and raised in the countryside, I’ve held a distinct, deeply rooted interest in nature and plants since I was a young boy,” Eftelioglu tells TRT World. “More than that, our father was a forest ranger. In our family, a profound love for nature is something inherited; it is passed down through the generations.”
From early on, Eftelioglu felt a unique attraction towards the tulip, a flower that carries profound historical, cultural, and spiritual weight in Türkiye, and particularly in Amasya.
“It is a plant intricately intertwined with the identity of Amasya. In traditional iconography, it symbolises the unity of the Divine, and it stands as the ultimate emblem of the Ottoman Empire,” he explains.
“Because a fully bloomed tulip closely resembles the Arabic script for the word ‘Allah’, it captured the imaginations of the Ottoman princes, the shehzades, who lived and ruled here in Amasya. It became the signature of the Ottoman banner, an omnipresent motif in mosque calligraphy, and a staple of traditional carpet weaving.”
The moment of discovery
It was Eftelioglu’s weekly hikes with a local trekking group, Akdost, exploring Amasya’s vast, mountainous terrain that led to the discovery on June 7 2026. While others walk for exercise or companionship, his focus always remained firmly on the ground beneath his boots.
“I am always closely observing the environment, collecting various medicinal herbs and wild flowers,” Eftelioglu recalls. “On that particular day, as I was scanning the surroundings, an unusual tulip species caught my eye. The trekking group I was with was quite large, and practically everyone walked right past the exact same spot. But because they didn’t know the history, they just took a few casual photos, assumed it was a common, ordinary wildflower, and kept moving along the trail.”
Eftelioglu stayed put. His mind immediately connected the flower in front of him to something he remembered from the past.
“I knew the context,” he says. “Years ago, someone had introduced me to the specific characteristics of this plant, and it immediately struck me that this specimen looked remarkably like the legendary Lost Tulip of Amasya.”
Eftelioglu and his brother had, in fact, spent years searching Amasya for the tulip, even collecting a few promising samples and sending them to authorities. But, he says, the official response was always the same: “the species was extinct, its lineage entirely wiped out in the wild.”
Refusing to let the moment slip away, Eftelioglu took detailed photographs of the bloom and resolved to bypass the standard bureaucratic channels, reaching out directly to frontline experts.
From the mountainside to the laboratory
Eftelioglu’s photographs set off an immediate chain reaction within the upper echelons of Turkish botany. He sent the images to Salih Sercan Kanoglu, the Director of the Nezahat Gokyigit Botanical Garden in Istanbul. Recognising the immense potential of the find, Kanoglu wasted no time, instantly contacting Professor Ismail Eker from the Department of Biology at Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University.
