Lilies are lilies, peonies are peonies.

Unless they're tulips.

"Tulip" is a Persian word for "turban," and it was once the perfect description of a tulip flower. Not anymore. Today there are numerous unusual tulip flower shapes that add striking variety in the spring garden or resemble other familiar flowers.

In full bloom, for example, peony-flowering or double tulips such as "Lilac Perfection" and the favorite "Angelique" are peony doppelgangers. Lily-flowering tulips have a vase-like shape with reflexive petals, much like Asiatic lilies. The combination of the two late-blooming tulips turns the spring garden on its head.

Other shapes worth a second glance include Parrots, Fringed, Ruffled, Bouquet and Viridiflora and variations of those blooms.

"Zampa Parrot" is a Greigii tulip that looks like a Parrot tulip. It's a rather stunted-looking tulip because it has the short stature of the Greigii but the large, ruffled and curly flowers of the Parrot. This unusual tulip has yellow blooms feathered in pink blush.

A double-late yellow peony tulip, "Mon Amour" has fringed edges and may bloom at ground level before the stem begins to stretch. "Cool Crystal" is another fringed-and peony-flowering combo in one tulip. This one is raspberry with white fringed edges and petal segments and blooms in late April.

I also noticed a new lily-flowering tulip in the White Flower Farm catalog, "Marilyn," a sport of "Mariette," that looked more like a real lily than any I've ever seen. White petals arch and a thin vein of red begins at the base and runs to petal tips.

Bouquet tulips, obviously, resemble bouquets because there are numerous flower blooms on a single stem. Viridiflora tulips have petals that show lots of green.

Species tulips also are worth noting. I love these pretty little tulips at the front of a border or clustered along the sidewalk. The flowers are relatively small and open to reveal striking star centers. Blooms last for several weeks. There are bi-color and edged forms, too. Look for Tulipa "Little Beauty," cherry-red with white-edged blue centers, and "Little Princess," orange with black center. Tulipa cuminata is a species that has thin, ragged-looking petals, while the "Lady Tulip" or tulipa clusiana is a small species with striped petals.

Several years ago, Dutch tulip expert Eric Breed came up with a list of the most outstanding (and interesting) tulips in several categories for Netherland Flower Bulb Information Center. Some of these choices, such as the most fragrant, most ruffled, most velvety, best double-flowering and best perennializing tulips may be worth tracking down at a nursery, through a catalog or online source.