Hemerocallis Europa : Hemerocallis History (engl.)

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Hemerocallis Europa e.V.

Hemerocallis History

Daylilies are known since many thousands years in East Asia. As in China some parts of the daylilies are used as food and medicine, the first mention of daylilies was done in the Chinese book "Materia Medica" 656 A.D. in the Tang dynasty. The first known illustration was done in China in the Materia Medica during the Sung Dynasty (1059 A.D.).

It is not clear when the first daylilies were introduced from the Orient to Europe, but probably it was not before 1500 A.D. The first mention of a daylily in an European book was by the Belgian herbalist Dodoens in 1554 in the "Cruydeboeck". It was a plant called Lilium luteum which was described in words but also shown on a picture; this was actually the today's H. lilioasphodelus. He also mentions the name Hemerocallis as a possible future name.
In 1570 Pena and de Lobel described in their book "Stirpium adversaria nova" also a daylily, which was H. lilioasphodelus. They called it in their book Lirioasphodelus. Other names used for this plant at that time were Lilium luteum, Luteus Liliflorus and Asphodelum.
In 1576 de Lobel published in the "Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia" a picture of H. lilioasphodelus under the name of Lilioasphodelus luteus liliflorus; in addition he also described H. fulva for the first time under the name Lirioasphodelus phoeniceus and the first picture of H. fulva was presented.
There were several other books that described one or both of these 2 daylilies afterwards; the names changed slightly between the different books. This changed when Linné published in 1753 his book "Species Plantarum" in which he listed the following under the name Hemerocallis:

Lilio Asphodelus flavus α (now known as H. lilioasphodelus)

Lilio Asphodelus fulvus β (now known as H. fulva)

Liliastrum (now known as Paradisea liliastrum; this is not a daylily)

In the second edition published in 1762 he changed the names and lists only the 2 real daylilies as:

H. flava (now known as H. lilioasphodelus)

H fulva

After the introduction of Linné's binomial nomenclature for the scientific (Latin) botanical name, further new daylily species got described until the end of the 19th century, like:

H. minor by Miller in 1768

H. fulva plants with double-flowers and with variegated leaves by Thunberg in 1784 (now known as H. fulva 'Kwanso' and H. fulva 'Kwanso Variegata')

H. graminea by Andrews in 1802

H. disticha (now known as H. fulva var. disticha) by Donn in 1811

H. dumortieri by Morren in 1834

H. middendorffii by Trautvetter & Meyer in 1856

H. longituba (now known as H. fulva var. longituba) by Miquel in 1867

H. fulva var. angustifolia by Baker in 1871

H. thunbergii by Barr in 1873 (better described by Baker in 1890)

H. aurantiaca by Baker in 1890

H. aurantiaca var. major by Baker in 1895

H. citrina by Baroni in 1897

H. fulva var. maculata by Baroni in 1897

Towards the end of the 19th century the first Hemerocallis hybrids were made and introduced. The first at all was done by the Englishman George Yeld in 1892 which he named APRICOT; it was a F1 hybrid between H. lilioasphodelus x H. middendorffii. When he showed this to the public, others started to hybridize daylilies as well. Until 1900 only 4 human made cultivars were named and pulished in journals, (i.e. APRICOT [Yeld, 1892], FRANCIS [Yeld, 1895], FLAVO-MIDDENDORFFII [Christ, 1898] and LUTEOLA [Wallace, 1900]).

Also in the 20th century new species were discovered and described, the most important once for hybridizing were:

H. littorea (now known as H. fulva var. littorea) by Makino in 1924 (late flowering)

H. multiflora by Stout in 1929 (branching, many small flowers)

H. fulva var. rosea by Stout in 1930 (rose flowers)

H. altissima by Stout in 1943 (tall, branching, many flowers)

H. hakuunensis by Nakai in 1943 (branching, many flowers)

(a complete list of Hemerocallis species and its details can be found at http://www.hemerocallis-species.com)

In 1934 A.B. Stout introduced the first red cultivar which he called THERON; it was a complex hybrid between several species, but did not include the rose-flowering species H. fulva var. rosea. With the usage of H. fulva var. rosea better red coloured daylilies could be hybridized and it was probably also the source for clearer colour in the daylily cultivars. The hybridization of daylilies started in Europe, but in the mid 1920s the Americans took over and took also the lead. Since then the number of cultivars increased more and more over the years:

at 1900:	4 cultivars
at 1910:	46 cultivars
at 1920:	66 cultivars
at 1930:	128 cultivars
at 1940:	577 cultivars
at 1950:	3'284 cultivars
at 1960:	8'624 cultivars
at 1970:	15'527 cultivars
at 1980:	22'827 cultivars
at 1990:	33'114 cultivars
at 2000:	48'354 cultivars

In the meantime there are more than 55000 at the AHS (= American Hemerocallis Society) registered named cultivars. Certainly there are also many unregistered named and also unnamed cultivars in the trade. In order to find out if a named daylily is registered or if it corresponds with the registered daylily cultivar, one can compare it with the AHS online checklist; for some of the newer daylilies there are even pictures (http://www.daylilies.org/DaylilyDB/).
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