Day Lily

day lily: see lily.

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daylily

 or day lily

Any plant of the genus Hemerocallis, in the lily family, consisting of about 15 species of perennial herbaceous plants distributed from central Europe to eastern Asia. Members have long-stalked clusters of funnel- or bell-shaped flowers that range in colour from yellow to red and are each short-lived (hence “day” lily). Daylilies have fleshy roots and narrow, sword-shaped leaves that are grouped at the base of the plant. The fruit is a capsule. Some species are cultivated as ornamentals or for their edible flowers and buds.

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Day Lily 

(Hemerocallis), a genus of perennial herbaceous plants of the family Liliaceae. The rootstock is short, more rarely creeping; the roots are often tuberously thickened; the leaves are radical, bistichous, and broadly linear; the flower stalks are 30-100 cm tall or more; the inflorescence is paniculate or capitate; the flowers are large, funnel-shaped, yellow or orange, more rarely pinkish or reddish.

There are approximately 20 species of the day lily in the temperate regions of Southeast Asia. In the USSR they are found from the Far East to as far west as the upper reaches of the Ob’ River: Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus and H. flavus (yellow day lily), H. minor, and H. Middendorffii. The Caucasus, Western Europe, and the USA have only wild species, most often H. fulva. Almost all species are ornamental. More than 10,000 garden forms and varieties are known. Dried day lilies are used in some countries as food seasonings.

REFERENCE

Poletiko, O. M. “Krasodnevy (Hemerocallis L.} i ikh dekorativnoe znachenie.” In Introduktsiia rastenii i zelenoe stroitel’stvo, issue 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1950. (Trudy Botanicheskogo instituta AN SSSR, series 6.)

O. M. POLETIKO