In your experience with breeding daylilies, has anyone noticed if watermarks were recessive or dominant?

That is an excellent question @TomThumb -- please let me know if you find anything out.

I haven’t done an in-depth search, but I’ve casually looked on the internet for answers to daylily hybridizing questions like that. Bits of good info here and there but a bit surprising that I have not found more...

I wonder if that’s because there really isn’t a whole lot that can be said with any high level of certainty. The genetics of tetraploid daylilies is so complex that it produces a very wide range of results making it difficult to determine patterns or rules.

I recently found another possible reason why it can be difficult to see patterns or rules.

I like to use photo editing software to overlay photos of daylily blooms. I don’t expect that to be a highly accurate predictor of what seedlings will look like, but on the other hand it is certainly possible that some of the seedlings of some crosses will be a blending of the blooms of the parents—and this gives me an idea of what that would look like.

I tried that with a bloom that has fairly prominent red veining. When overlaid on a gold-colored bloom the veining remained quite visible, but when overlaid on a beige bloom the veining almost disappeared!

You can imagine what one would think if this actually occurred in real life. Even if veining was highly dominant and was actually present on almost all the seedlings, you wouldn’t see it on many seedlings that had the right color to mask it...

I enjoy questions like this myself and hope for hearing or finding answers. In my *guess*, the trait is dominant. I do a lot of dabbing, but not a lot of growing out the seedlings. I really like watermarks but haven't grown out hardly any seedlings from my plants with watermarks. But the daylily Jennifer Trimmer came to mind. (Don't have time to check Born to Run.) So I checked the database here to see how many children have been registered with Jennifer Trimmer as the parent. As I had hoped, not too many, so I looked at every child plant. Every child plant had the watermark trait. But I didn't look at every single parent that Jennifer Trimmer was crossed with. On quick glance, most also had a watermark with the exception of one or two. So just to get some statistics, one might do the same with several daylilies that have a watermark. So then it would also be interesting to see how many watermarks were produced by daylilies with [no watermark X watermark] or [eyed daylily x watermark]. Do eyed dayliles x watermarked daylily produce a watermark or a pattern?

I am just guessing but I would think the trait would be dominant. Just look at Bill Munson's line with all the watermarks.

Steve... @Ahead

Watermarks! An actual topic just for watermarks?? Love it!

I am no expert, and I think that recessive or dominate may have more to do with a particular cultivar, than a specific trait...
But that being said, I have some daylilies here that seem to put a watermark on anything and everything. ARABELLA PEARL and VICTORIA JOSEPHINE put a watermark on everything. They are out of HIGH WATER MARK (which does the same thing) and WHITE EYE PINK DRAGON (which I have not done as much with).

In continuing down the ARABELLA and VICTORIA line, watermarks tend to dominate.

I have a couple questions...

Is an eyewash the same as a watermark?

Also, what would you call the thin red line around the watermark in this photo:

Is that a very thin eye, or is that an "edge" to the watermark, or what?

I would call that picture a banded eye.

Thanks for the replies everyone.
Good to hear Steve, that Victoria Josephine has a dominant watermark. I can't wait to grow out the seed crosses I got from you. Victoria Josephine happens to be one of my favorites of your seedlings. Any idea Steve if Nana Nance and High water mark are also dominant? It would be really cool to get a large water mark on an even larger bloom like Emerald Tarantula.

HIGH WATER MARK is for me, and gave me VICTORIA. NANA NANCE has been as well, and the two of them together is magical. Below is a NANA NANCE X VICTORIA kid.




Taking VICTORIA to TETRFK produced huge blooms with open throats/watermarks and a variety of colors....green, chalky white, pink, lavender. The plant form is perfectly open to show them off in the best possible way. I think using EMERALD TARANTULA could give you amazing results. I have some HIGH WATER MARK X ET seeds in my keeper bag. I also have seeds from this cross in the keeper bag too!
Good luck! PS - Davi is the queen of watermarks, and would be the best person possible to ask about plants and direction.

Steve, the seedling are stunning! If I had those blooming in my garden, I'm sure I'd pass out the first time I saw them!

NANA NANCE X VICTORIA kid.





Every going to introduce this one Steve?
I really like how white the watermark is on this one.

Also this is a totally different topic, but has your Clown Pants produced any striped seedlings yet in a F1 to any non striped parents?

Thanks for answering all my questions Steve

Have not seen any CP kids yet. Next year.

Ugh... guess I should join.. I've been watermarked against my own will... Two seedlings this year from seed I bought from @ahead

(hazmatter x arabella) x TET RFK x Vicki gray y/w



Smiling Savannah x TET RFK x Vicki gray y/w

Baby steps, Peter....lol. They are lovely!

Dennis

I would call that thin red line a pencil band as well. Technically, a watermark is a LIGHTER eye zone than the petal color and the brighter color of the eye is not lighter to my eye, so I agree with Steve that your example is a banded eye zone.

There is a lot of room for innovation in working with watermarks as new colors are appearing in watermarks and they are getting larger and larger and taking on new shapes when they are crossed with unusual forms. The clarity that you see in watermark colors of late is just outstanding!! That will make it easier to produce clean watermarks in shades of apricot, pink, orchid, melon, pure white, green and chartreuse, as well as multicolored! Watermarks are relatively easy to work with, too. Love em!!! Love em!!! Love em all!!!

There is not much on the genetics of daylilies, even of diploid daylilies, because geneticists have had difficulties in producing the standard crosses using the standard techniques for the scientifically accepted analyses.

Dominant and recessive always need to be described in reference to something. In other words dominant to "what" or recessive to "what". For example, some flower colour might be recessive to purple but dominant to cream.

Tetraploid genetics are usually much more complicated than diploid genetics.

Basically, my opinions.

A watermarked plant crossed to a very light coloured flower may produce some watermarks. When crossed with dark flowered plants it would be less likely to do so. When crossed with dark flowered plants it will depend on whether the dark-flowered plant is itself from crosses of dark-flowered parents or from dark x light flowered parents.

The eye zone is probably present in all or nearly all daylilies. It cannot be seen with the naked eye in daylilies that do not produce easily visible amounts of anthocyanin pigments in their flowers. However, when such flowers are looked at under UV light or with various chemical procedures the less obvious pigments become visible and the eye zone is displayed.

My guess is that watermarks and eyes are more or less the same. There are probably many genes involved that determine how much pigment is present in the eye zone area and how much pigment is present in the outer areas. Higher amounts of pigment in the eye zone area and lower amounts in the outer area produce an eye. Lower amounts of pigment in the eye zone area and higher amounts of pigment in the outer area produce a watermark. All those amounts will probably vary continuously. There is probably a simpler genetic basis to the presence versus absence of the strongly coloured anthocyanin pigments delphinidin and cyanidin versus the lighter cream, light yellow pigments that are their precursors (the compounds that are produced first and then modified to become cyanidin or delphinidin, etc.)