Orange Daylily

Following an earlier European introduction from Asia, Hemerocallis fulva was brought to North America in the seventeenth century. This commonly cultivated daylily, the wild type, is distinguished as cultivar ‘Europa’ Stout and is a self-sterile triploid producing no seed. Essentially, it is a large, complex clone. Plants persist from cultivation or have arisen from root or rhizome fragments, which are capable of plant regeneration. Cultivar ‘Kwanso’ Regel, another ancient garden selection, persists in many areas along with the wild type and has fully doubled flowers. In eastern Asia, both diploids and triploids occur in the H. fulva complex and have been the basis for extensive breeding and tetraploid cultivar selection (A. B. Stout 1934).

Four varieties may be recognized in China. The status of Hemerocallis fulva var. oppositibracteata H. Kong & Ching J. Wang (Guihaia 16: 303. 1996), described from Gansu, is uncertain. It supposedly differs in having narrower leaves 5--8 mm wide, subopposite sterile bracts, narrower perianth segments (outer ones 0.6--1 cm wide), and obovoid capsules.

Plants 7–15 dm; main roots fleshy. Leaf blade yellowish green, 7–10 dm × (1–)2.5–3 cm. Scape branched, 10–20-flowered, taller than foliage. Flowers diurnal, not fragrant; perianth tube, widely funnelform, 2–3 cm; tepals yellow basally with darker tawny orange zones and stripes, veins reticulate; outer tepals 7–8 × 1.8–2.2 cm, margins smooth; inner tepals 7.5–8.5 cm × 3–3.5 cm, margins wavy; filaments 4.5–6.5 cm; anthers 5–7 mm; ovary 8–10 mm; style white to pale orange, 9–10 cm; pedicel 3–6 mm. Capsules not or rarely developing. Seeds rarely produced. 2n = 33.

Plants 40--150 cm tall, usually deciduous in winter. Roots fleshy, with globose-ellipsoid, swollen, tuberous part near tip; stolons sometimes to 30 cm. Leaves linear, 50--90 × 1--2.8 cm, apex acute. Scape erect, hollow; sterile bracts present. Helicoidal cymes double, 2--5(--10)-flowered; bracts scalelike or lanceolate. Pedicel ca. 5 mm. Flowers unscented, strictly day opening, opening in morning and closing in evening of same day. Perianth single, occasionally double (stamens petaloid), orange to reddish orange; tube 2--4 cm; segments spreading, with a purple or reddish orange patch, 5--12 × 1--3 cm, margin sometimes crinkly-undulate, inner segments wider than outer ones. Filaments 4--5 cm; anthers purplish black, 7--8 mm. Capsule ellipsoid, 2--2.5 × 1.2--1.5 cm. Fl. Jun--Nov. 2 n = 22, 33.

S. Europe, India, China, Japan. Cultivated throughout India and possibly escaped from cultivation in Nepal.

introduced; N.B., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis.; e Asia (China, Japan); naturalized Eurasia; expected elsewhere.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Japan, Korea, Russia].

2400-3600 m

Flowering late spring--early summer.

Roadsides, waste places, homesteads, open forests, stream banks; 0--1000m.

Forests, thickets, grasslands, streamsides; 300--2500 m.

Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus Linnaeus var. fulvus Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 324. 1753