By Carina Magyar in Flowers — May 21, 2023

II: Daylily

The two most prolific creators of daylilies.

Look quickly at the daylily before it's gone. Photo by Adrian Dale / Unsplash

Good morning. Today is duodi, the 2nd of Prairial, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate la hémérocalle, an astounding flower that blooms for just one day.

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The daylily was classified as a lily for a long time because its flower resembles lilies down to the last detail, but instead of growing from a bulb, like true lilies, the daylily grows from roots that form little tubers. This makes daylilies lower maintenance and easy to replant, and it also makes them edible in a way that lilies typically aren't. The tubers, first green shoots, young spring buds, and fully bloomed petals are all edible. Just be sure you have a daylily before frying anything up by pulling one up to see what's going on underneath. Bulbous roots, you're good to go, but a solid bulb mass, better safe to put it back and let it be.

You can't really say anything about daylilies without bring up Dr. Arlow Burdette Stout. When he passed away in CLXVI (1957), he had helpfully provided the New York Times with his own obituary (which they went and added to anyway, the incorrible writers), saying, in part, "Dr. Stout was widely known for ... hybridization and selected breeding of many new types of Hemerocallis (daylily)."

This was an understatement to the point of self-effacement. He worked for nearly four decades at the New York Botanical Gardens, and in that time, conducted more than 50,000 hybridizing experiments, yielding more than 100 never-before-seen daylily species.

II: Daylily

I: Alfalfa

III: Clover

I: Alfalfa

III: Clover

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