Stout and The Tawny

The ditch lilies are out in force.  Excuse me for using what seems to be a tawdry name, perhaps you know them by the more accepted monikers tawny orange daylilies or Hemerocallis fulva.  Natives of Asia, legend has it they were brought here by sea captains bearing gifts for their wives (who might have longed for something shinier).  No doubt their bright orange flowers, with pale stripes and yellow throats, delighted nineteenth century gardeners, who were daylily-deprived.  Although each blossom lasts for only a day, they flower abundantly and possess a tenacious spirit, growing in a wide range of conditions and re-appearing after being mowed, grazed, or even sprayed with herbicide.  Given their ability to spread, H. fulva is considered an exotic invasive through much of the eastern U.S. and in pockets farther west.  But as intruders go, it is difficult to thoroughly dislike the eye-dazzling trumpets, which seem to scream, “its summer, its hot, and so am I!”

With both rhizomes (spreading roots) as well as tubers (swollen underground storage organs), tawny daylilies are tough customers which can move.  Oddly enough, for all the show of the flowers, most of the plants we see “in the wild” are somewhat useless from a biological perspective, since they rarely reproduce from seed.  This is because they are a triploid form, and while producing viable pollen, they are otherwise sterile.  This triploid form is scientifically known as Hemerocallis fulva variety fulva.  Other forms of H. fulva, many long-cultivated in Asia for food, medicine, and beauty, also made their way to European and American gardens, along with other species of daylilies, which total about twenty in number.

Providence smiled upon the daylily when a Midwestern farm lad met H. fulva in the 1890’s.  Young Arlow Burdett Stout was intrigued by his mother’s tawny daylilies, growing by the porch, which produced no seeds.  He went on to study botany at the University of Wisconsin, and soon earned a Ph. D. from Columbia.  By 1911 he was working at the New York Botanical Garden, where in the 1920’s he obtained daylily plants and seeds from Asia.  Keeping meticulous records, he started hybridizing, eventually making over 50,000 crosses and raising thousands of seedlings, which were evaluated and culled, leaving only about 100 plants good enough to become named varieties. 

And oh what varieties they were!  The first one to hit the market, in 1929, was ‘Mikado,’ a strong yellow with dark red bands.  One of ‘Mikado’s’ parents was, unsurprisingly, H. fulva.  Daylily popularity boomed with the introduction of more of Stout’s hybrids, encouraging other plant breeders to get involved as well.  Today we have almost 50,000 named hybrid daylilies in vast array of colors, forms, and sizes.  Each year, one new daylily cultivar wins the Stout Silver Medal, the highest honor given by the American Daylily Society.  2018’s winner, ‘Entwined In The Vine,’ is a lavender pink, with a darker lavender multi-colored eye, yellow-green throat, and rippled ivory edge.  You’ve come a long way, tawny.