While other cities put their brilliance into their arsenals, their squares, their shops, and their bazaars, Harlem put all its glory into its dense, beautiful ash trees and slender poplars, and into its shady parks of oak, linden, and chestnut trees.
When Haarlem noticed that Leiden, its neighbor, was focused on becoming a city of science, and Amsterdam, a city of commerce, it chose Haarlem to be a city of roses, especially lilies.

With its abundant shade, excellent sea breezes, and sunny plains, the city offered gardeners possibilities no other city could offer. Instead of the restless and troubled minds of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, consumed by a love of travel and trade, in Haarlem we see calm minds nurtured by a love of the land and its work.

Thus, Harlem gravitated toward beautiful, pleasant things, music, painting, gardens, and flowerbeds. It became crazy about flowers, especially tulips. The Harlem Horticultural League therefore organized a competition in which the discoverer of the black tulip would receive 100,000 florins.

Cornelius van Baerel, who loved flowers, was excited about this competition... With zeal, effort, and patience, he worked to uncover the great secret of the lily, which until then was believed to be impossible to discover. After much difficulty, he produced an incomparable black lily. But his neighbor, the alchemist Isaac Boxtel, with his selfishness, hatred, and envy, tried to seize the lily and dash all his dreams and the dreams of his beloved Rosa, which they had built on the large sum allocated for this prize.