Daylily

Plant Characteristics

Habit		herbaceous
Lifespan:	⌛	perennial

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	sun
Water:	◍	moderate
Features:	✓	flowers, edible, naturalizes
USDA Zones:		1 to 11
Flower features:	❀	red, orange, yellow, brown, multicolored, pink, single, double

Scientific Names

Hemerocallidaceae >

Hemerocallis >

Daylilies comprise the small genus Hemerocallis of flowering plants in the family Hemerocallidaceae. They are not true lilies which are Lilium in Liliaceae.

These plants are perennial. The name Hemerocallis comes from the Greek words hēmera "day" and kalos "beautiful". The flowers of most species open at sunrise and wither at sunset, possibly replaced by another one on the same stem the next day. Some species are night-blooming. Daylilies are not commonly used as cut flowers for formal flower arranging, yet they make good cut flowers otherwise as new flowers continue to open on cut stems over several days.

Originally native from Europe to China, Korea, and Japan, their large showy flowers have made them popular worldwide. There are over 60,000 registered cultivars. Only a few cultivars are scented. Some cultivars rebloom later in the season, particularly if their developing seedpods are removed.

Daylilies occur as a clump including leaves, the crown, and the roots. The long, often linear lanceolate leaves are grouped into opposite flat fans with leaves arching out to both sides. The crown of a daylily is the small white portion between the leaves and the roots, an essential part of the fan. Along the flower stem or scape, small leafy "proliferations" may form at nodes or in bracts. These proliferations form roots when planted and are the exact clones of the parent plant. Some daylilies show elongated widenings along the roots, made by the plant mostly for water storage and an indication of good health.

The flower consists of three petals and three sepals, collectively called tepals, each with a midrib in the same or in a contrasting color. The centermost section of the flower, called the throat, has usually a different and contrasting color. There are six stamens, each with a two-lobed anther. After pollination, the flower forms a pod.

Daylilies can be grown in USDA plant hardiness zones 1 through 11, making them some of the most adaptable landscape plants. Most of the cultivars have been developed within the last 100 years. The large-flowered clear yellow 'Hyperion', introduced in the 1920s, heralded a return to gardens of the once-dismissed daylily, and is still widely available. Daylily breeding has been a specialty in the United States, where their heat- and drought-resistance made them garden standbys during the later 20th century. New cultivars have sold for thousands of dollars, but sturdy and prolific introductions soon reach reasonable prices.

'Kwanzo' - a triple-flowered triploid cultivar

Tawny Daylily Hemerocallis fulva, and sweet-scented H. lilioasphodelus (H. flava is an illegitimate name), colloquially called Lemon Lily, were early imports from England to 17th century American gardens and soon established themselves. Tawny Daylily is so widely growing wild that it is often considered a native wildflower. It is called Roadside or Railroad Daylily, and gained the nickname Wash-house or Outhouse Lily because it was frequently planted at such buildings.

Hemerocallis is one of the most hybridized of all garden plants, with registrations of new hybrids being made in the thousands each year in the search for new traits. Hybridizers have extended the plant's color range from the yellow, orange, and pale pink of the species, to vibrant reds, purples, lavenders, greenish tones, near-black, near-white, and more. However, a blue daylily is a milestone yet to be reached.

Read about Daylily in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Hemerocallis (Greek, beautiful for a day; because the blossoms fail at night).Liliaceae. Yellow Day Lily. Popular yellow- and orange-flowered stout-rooted glabrous perennials with abundant radical foliage, prized for their hardiness and the showy bloom in spring and summer. Erect with more or less branching scapes overtopping the long keeled lvs. which are both radical and 2-ranked at the base of the scape: fls. lily-like, mostly horizontal or oblique; tube short, inclosing the ovary; segms. 6, much exceeding the tube, oblong or spatulate; stamens 6, inserted in the throat, declined, the filaments slender, the style simple; ovary oblong, 3-celled, becoming a loculicidally 3-valved caps.: seeds black, spherical. —Species about a half-dozen, Eu. to Japan. Hemerocallis includes the lemon lily (H. flava), one of the hardiest and best of herbaceous perennials. All the blue and white day lilies belong to the genus Hosta; all the yellow and orange day lilies belong to Hemerocallis. The yellow day lilies have narrow, grass-like foliage, and their flowers have wider funnels; the blue and white day lilies have very broad foliage, which is not at all grass-like. The plants are all remarkably free from enemies, and need no protection of any kind, even in the severest winters. The roots are bundles of fleshy tubers, and are sometimes classed with bulbs in catalogues of nurserymen. Small plants will bloom the first year from the nursery. Clumps can often be left undivided for four or five years without loss in size or number of flowers, but as a general thing all robust-growing herbaceous perennials should be divided frequently. In old clumps the roots often become firmly matted near the middle, and the wasteful competition between the too-numerous roots weakens the vitality of the plant and the flowers are likely not to be good. Next to H. flava, the oldest garden favorites among the yellow day lillies is H. fulva, sometimes called brown day lily, and erroneously in some catalogues the lemon lily. H. fulva is a taller plant, with later and orange-colored flowers and wavy inner segments. H. auranliaca has come into prominence, and its var. major by some connoisseurs is considered the finest of all day lilies. As a rule, double forms are not so popular as the types, and they lack the simplicity and definite character of the single flowers. Yellow day lilies have a wholesome fragrance. The individual flowers are short-lived, but there is a good succession. The plants thrive in almost any garden soil, but are most luxuriant along the borders of ponds or moist places, and in partial shade. The flowers are excellent for cutting. Plants propagated by division. R. B. Whyte gives the succession of bloom at Ottawa, Canada, as follows: H. dumortierii, June 4; H. minor, H. middendorfii and H. thunbergii, June 11; H. rutilans, June 18; H. fulva, July 2; H. auranliaca var. major, July 9; H. fulva var. kwanso, July 23, and H. disticha fl.-pl., July 30. The common species, particularly H. fulva, often colonize about yards, and along roadsides sometimes making great areas of foliage and very little bloom. There are several worthy hybrids in cultivation in the choice collections of plants (see supplementary list). The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Cultivation

Propagation

Division for true offspring. Seed.

Species

This is a list of species, not of cultivars, which number in the thousands:

Hemerocallis minor dried seed pods

Hemerocallis thunbergii

A Hemerocallis fulva longituba commonly called a "Red Magic" daylily for its color combination

• Hemerocallis altissima Stout
• Hemerocallis aurantiaca Baker
• Hemerocallis citrina Baroni

• Hemerocallis cordata C.P.Thunberg ex A. Murray
• Hemerocallis coreana Nakai
• Hemerocallis darrowiana S.Y.Hu
• Hemerocallis dumortierii Morr
• Hemerocallis esculenta Koidz.
• Hemerocallis exaltata Stout
• Hemerocallis ×exilis Satake
• Hemerocallis forrestii Diels
• Hemerocallis fulva L. : Orange Daylily, Tawny Daylily, Tiger Lily, Ditch Lily
• Hemerocallis hakuunensis Nakai
• Hemerocallis hongdoensis M.G.Chung & S.S.Kang
• Hemerocallis ×hybrida (hort.)
• Hemerocallis japonica C.P.Thunberg ex A. Murray
• Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus L, Hemerocallis flava L, Lemon Lily, Yellow daylily
• Hemerocallis littorea Makino
• Hemerocallis micrantha Nakai
• Hemerocallis middendorffii Trautv. & Mey.
• Hemerocallis minor Mill.
• Hemerocallis multiflora Stout
• Hemerocallis nana W.W.Sm. & Forrest
• Hemerocallis ×ochroleuca (hort. ex Bergmans)
• Hemerocallis pedicellata Nakai
• Hemerocallis plicata Stapf
• Hemerocallis sempervirens Araki
• Hemerocallis sendaica Ohwi
• Hemerocallis serotina Focke
• Hemerocallis ×stoutiana Traub (hort.)
• Hemerocallis sulphurea Nakai
• Hemerocallis taeanensis S.S.Kang & M.G.Chung
• Hemerocallis thunbergii Baker
• Hemerocallis ×traubara Moldenke (hort.)
• Hemerocallis ×traubiana Moldenke (hort.)
• Hemerocallis vespertina Hara
• Hemerocallis washingtonia Traub
• Hemerocallis ×yeldara Traub (hort.)
• Hemerocallis ×yeldiana Traub (hort.)
• Hemerocallis yezoensis Hara

Read about Daylily in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Index. aurantiaca, 8. citrina, 5. crocea, 6. cypriani, 9. disticha, 9. dumortierii, 7. flava, 1. flore-pleno, 7, 9. fulva, 9. graminea, 6. graminifolia, 6. hupehensis, 9. Kwanso, 9. longituba, 9. luteola, 3. maculata, 9. major, 3, 8. middendorffii, 4. minor, 6. pallena, 3. rutilans, 7. sieboldii, 7. thunbergii, 2. variegata, 9. H. baroni, Hort. (H. thunbergii X H. citrina). Pale yellow; segms. narrow and pointed.—H. cordna, Hort. (H. flava X H. aurantiaca var. major). Floriferous, golden yellow. H. elmensis, Hort. (H. minor and H. citrina).H. florham is said to be a variety of American origin, with large golden yellow fragrant fls. in June and July. H. forrestii, Diets, recently intro. from W. China, is allied to H. fulva, but readily distinguished by its narrow perianth which has a remarkably short tube: fls. deep reddish orange: lvs. 8-14 in. long and 2/3 in. or less broad.—H. fulcitrina, Hort. {H. fulva var. maculata and H. citrina).H. hippeastroides, Hort. (H. minor var. crocea and H. thunbergii.)—H. muelleri, Hort. (H. thunbergii and H. citrina).—H. ochroleuca, Hort. (H. thunbergii and H. citrina). Pale primrose-yellow.—H. vomerensis, Hort. (H. thunbergii and H. minor var. crocea). The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Gallery

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External links

• w:Daylily. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Daylily QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)
• The American Hemerocallis Society