He is not sure how much they are worth, either.
''I haven't got a clue,'' he said.
''You don't go around asking people questions like that when they give you something.''
However, he - and the other trustees - are very grateful. Mr Bryant and about a dozen others last week put the bulbs into paper bags holding 30 in each.
They sold the bags for $10 apiece at the Dunedin Botanic Garden plant sale and the farmers market on Saturday.
The price of $10 per bag the trust charged was more or less arbitrary, Mr Bryant said.
''We just had a meeting of the trustees and decided what would be a good price to charge for them. We didn't go and check out what [price tulip bulbs] were going for.''
Trust chairman Malcolm Wong reckons they sold about 250 bags on Saturday and 300 beforehand at other locations, for a total of about $5500.
Mr Wong declined to provide much more detail about the origin of the bulbs, saying only that they were ''a bit left over'' at the ''end of a line of a colour [of tulips]''.
The donor, he said, who was from down south, wanted to remain anonymous, ''so we have to respect that''.
To sell off the remaining bulbs, he said, the trust might hold a ''special Sunday'' at the gardens.
