JOURNAL 



OF 



The New York Botanical Garden 



Vol. XXVI August, 1925 No. 308 



NEW DAY LILIES 



Numerous new varieties of day lilies (Hemerocallis) have re- 

 cently been developed at The New York Botanical Garden 

 through hybridization. These plants extend considerably the 

 range in the color, size, and shape of the flowers for this group 

 of ornamentals and include a goodly number of hybrids whose 

 flowers are pleasing and attractive. The results already realized 

 indicate that the rather simple flower colors of the older species 

 may be broken up, recombined, and even intensified through hy- 

 bridization, thus producing an increased diversity and yielding 

 new forms of special interest and value to the flower-grower. 



The list of day lilies available for general garden culture and 

 for breeding purposes is not a long one. There are, however, 

 about ten recognized species in cultivation to begin with. Of 

 these the lemon day lily (Hemerocallis flava) with its fragrant 

 and clear yellow flowers and the still more common orange day 

 lily (H. fulva) are best known. The record of their culture in 

 Europe extends back nearly 500 years. Possibly they were 

 brought to Europe from Asia as early as the time of Marco Polo. 

 In recent years other species have been brought from the Old 

 World to the New. 



Of them all, Hemerocallis fulva has the gayest flowers. In this 

 the throat of a flower is deep chrome, outside of which there is a 

 zone of English red extending with decreasing intensity to the tip 

 of the six flower segments. The pattern is fairly well indicated 

 in Figure 2 (the middle flower of the upper row). The flower 

 is bi-colored with the chrome and the red in conspicuous contrast. 



169 



