Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Early Harvest' is one of the earliest tulips to flower in the Chicago region. Unlike other cultivars of kaufmanniana, this selection has rounded tips to the petals instead of pointed ones. A mix of orange and yellow shades, the flowers are held on short, stout stems above green leaves marked with maroon. Tulipa kaufmanniana is native to the western slopes of the Tien Shan mountains in Kazakstan, where they display a wide range of colors in the shrub belt, in stony soils interspersed with grasses.

The admiration the Turkish and Persian potentates had for tulips was eclipsed by "tulip mania" in the Netherlands and Europe early in the seventeenth century, when speculators drove the prices astronomically high. As with all speculative ventures, major fortunes were lost when the source of the highly prized color breaks was discovered to be a virus, and not some unique characteristic of the soil or growing conditions.