More on Daylilies - Useful Terminology to Know

Not everyone has the desire to be a daylily hybridizer.  I'm one of those folks.  I don't have the patience to do a task one year and then wait several years to see if it results in what I hoped it would.  Many of the terms you'll find if you look at the dictionary of the American Hemerocallis Society (the organization that registers and tracks daylily cultivars), are only needed if you do desire to be a hybridizer.  There are a few, though, that it's handy to know just to understand exactly what you can expect from a daylily you purchase. 

Here is a daylily description from the American Hemerocallis Society's website:

Lynnabelle (Adams-Schock, 2005)
Scape Height:  28 inches
Bloom Size:      5 inches
Bloom Season: Midseason - Late
Ploidy:              Diploid
Foliage Type:   SEV
Bloom Habit:   Diurnal
Bud Count:      23
Branches:          3
Color:   cream yellow apricot polychrome with darker apricot eye and gold picotee edge above yellow green throat.

Without understanding a few basic daylily terms, it's really hard to know exactly what this daylily looks like, or even how it grows.

So, let's start with scape.  A scape is simply a flower stalk without leaves.  It's the long sturdy "blossom holder" of the daylily.  Low scapes are from 6 to 24 inches tall.  Medium scapes are 24 to 36 inches tall and tall scapes are taller than 36 inches.

Bloom size measures the diameter of the flower.  A miniature bloom size is under 3 inches in diameter.  Small blooms are from 3 to 4 1/2 inches and any bloom larger than 4 1/2 inches is considered large.

Bloom season tells us when in the summer blossom sequence this daylily is likely to bloom, but not exactly when it will bloom because that varies from location to location.  Bloom season is classified as Extra Early; Early; Early Midseason; Midseason; Late Midseason; Late; Very Late; and Rebloomer.  Midseason to Late tells us that Lynnabelle is going to start blooming towards the end of the peak of daylily blooms (Midseason) and into the late summer or fall.

Ploidy.  Now that's an interesting word and not one we are likely to use in everyday conversation.  Ploidy refers to the chromosomes in the plants.  Most plants  have two identical sets of chromosomes per cell and are known as diploids.  Tetraploids have four sets of chromosomes per cell.  Tetraploid daylilies usually have larger, more intensely colored flowers, with sturdier scapes and more vigorous growth.  Diploid daylilies are still the most common, especially in pink daylilies, as well as spider type and double daylilies, and provide many beautiful flowers and healthy plants.

 

We talked a little about foliage type or growth habit in Tuesday's blog.  As a quick refresher, SEV means that Lynnabelle is a semi-evergreen variety.  Other varieties are DOR or dormant and EV or evergreen. 

 

Bloom habit refers to when the blossom opens.    Most daylilies bloom for a single day, beginning in the early morning and lasting until the evening and are referred to as diurnal.  Nocturnal daylilies open in late afternoon and close the following late morning or early afternoon.  Extended bloom refers to a daylily whose blossoms remain open 16 hours or more.  Extended bloomers may be diurnal or nocturnal in nature.               

Bud count often isn't included in a description you find at the garden center, but it is important to know if you want to fill your garden with the best of the best in daylilies.  Bud count is the number of buds, seed pods, and bud scars on a scape.  It's important because each blossom only lasts one day, so the more buds you get, the longer the bloom time for the plant as a whole will be.

Branches are the number of times a scape separates.  Lynnabelle typically has three branches per scape.  More branching means more buds and more buds mean more blossoms.  That's always a good thing.

Lynnabelle is a cream, apricot, and yellow polychrome color.  This means that there are at least three different colors (cream, apricot, and yellow, in this case) intermixed on each of the petals (the top three flower segments) and sepals (the bottom three segments).  The darker apricot eye means that there is a darker colored area on both the petals and sepals just above the throat.

The throat is the innermost center of the flower, where the pistils and stamens attach to the back of the flower.  The pistils and stamens are those threadlike projections that contain the pollen and reproductive organs of the flower. Lynnabelle's throat is a yellow-green color.

A picotee edge refers to an edge around the petals and sepals that is a completely different color than either the petals or sepals.  In Lynnabelle's case, the picotee edge is a golden color.

So, even though I understand what all these terms mean now, it's still helpful for me to see a picture.   Putting the photo together with what I know of its growth habits, number of flowers it's likely to produce and all the other information I have tells me pretty much exactly what to expect from this daylily once I have it in my garden.

And, if I ever have questions, I can easily ask, the "Schock" part of the Adams-Schock hybridizer team who created and registered this daylily. She lives just a ways down the road from me. Now how exciting is that to know the creator of one of the best producing daylilies in my garden?  And yes, I got my Lynnabelle directly from her.

We'll cover a few more terms in next week's blog.