| Daylily | ||||||||||||
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| H. dumortieri, etc |
The daylily is any of about 15 species of flowering plants in the genus Hemerocallis. Hemerocallis fulva, the tawny daylily and H. flava, the lemon lily, were early imports from England to 17th century American gardens that soon established themselves along roadsides. The tawny daylily especially is so widely feral that it is often mistaken for a native American wildflower.
The name Hemerocallis is based on the Greek words for day and beauty, which reflects the fact that the individual flowers last for only one day.
Originally from Eurasia, native from Europe to China, Korea, and Japan, their large showy flowers have made them popular worldwide, and there are over 30,000 named cultivars. The large-flowered clear yellow 'Hyperion', introduced in 1940, heralded a return to gardens of the once-dismissed daylily and is still widely available. A repeat-flowering, pumpkin-yellow cultivar 'Stella d"Oro' initiated a race of repeat-flowering Hemerocallis. Daylily breeding has been a specialty above all in the United States, where the heat- and drought-resistant qualities of Hemerocallis made them garden stand-bys during the later 20th century.
The flowers have been used for food and medicinal purposes in the past.
