In the 1950s, when synthetic materials had recently been introduced, people used to admire plastic tulips for their realistic quality. Consumers were charmed by the obvious advantages of these fake flowers: they never withered, and every tulip looked absolutely perfect. When I buy a bouquet of real tulips these days, it strikes me how much they resemble plastic ones. By and large, the famous Dutch tulip is no longer an exclusive product of nature, for its cultivation increasingly depends on treatment with chemical and biotechnological means. The advantages are obvious: the flowers remain fresh much longer, and every single tulip meets the requirements of standardized size, shape, and color. Whereas before, we wanted the artificial object to look like a real one, we have now entered an era in which we want the real object to look like "perfected nature." We are no longer satisfied with a plastic imitation of an organic object, yet neither are we satisfied with nature's own imperfect products. So we tinker with flowers and treat them with chemical and other techniques, until they meet our aesthetic standards. The contemporary tulip, in other words, has become an intricate object, an amalgam of organic material, cultural norms, and technological tooling.