68 



Daylily, together with the fulvous Europa Daylily, was probahly 

 taken from the Orient to Europe at an early date, primarily for the 

 medicinal uses noted by Pena and Lobel in 1570. But the Lemon 

 Daylily was and still is an excellent plant for flower gardens and 

 in this use it has continued in culture to the present date. 



Cultivated plants are often very different from the wild species 

 from which they arose. When they are not hybrids or polyploids 

 but selections or developments from a wild species they usually 

 possess its essential specific characters but they may differ greatly 

 in characters such as vigor, habits of growth, and size of flowers. 

 Such variations are often important in horticulture, especially when 

 they may be continued by clonal propagation. 



The plant named Hemerocallis flava by Linnaeus in 1762 had 

 then already been cultivated in Europe for at least 192 years, and 

 it has continued to the present time by clonal propagation. In por- 

 tions of middle Europe it has become somewhat naturalized and 

 possibly this has involved reproduction by seeds. In America it 

 persists in abandoned garden sites but does not spread readily and 

 become naturalized as does the H. fulva clone Europa. There is 

 no indication that the plant is itself a hybrid or a polyploid muta- 

 tion. At the present time there is no reliable evidence that a wild 

 species which has the essential botanical characters of this plant 

 exists in the Orient. Possibly such a species does exist there but 

 has not been discovered or at least accurately described. Until ade- 

 quate descriptions are available for the types of wild and cultivated 

 daylilies in the Orient, one can scarcely make a satisfactory con- 

 clusion regarding the origin of this old familiar garden plant, the 

 Lemon Daylily. 



■A. B. Stout 



