Is there a criteria for registering a daylily cultivar, or is it just a matter of establishing the cross and paying whatever the registration fee might be? I'm a bit curious as it is clearly daylily season and I'm enjoying all the newly posted photos. Some, however, are downright unappealing to me which gave rise to this question. No offense intended to anyone, we all have our own ideas of what is (or is not) visually appealing.

If you pay the money you can register a plant regardless of how "ugly" it is. For most hybridizers visually appeal is only as important as scape height and bud count. A flower could be a stand out but if it blooms in the foliage or has a low bud count they will try to breed it out of the plant before registering it. I say most but there are more than likely more hobby hybridizers registering plants every year then people who make a living off of it.
Can you please give a few examples of some you find unappealing or what traits you find unappealing? I personally think many of the photos don't truly capture the beauty of the flower but agree that some seem to be a waste of a good name.

Anything you want to register can be registered by paying the price and following the naming rules.
I think one of the best things about daylilies are the wide variety of flower types, forms, and colors. You don't have to like them all. You can even think some are down right ugly. Everyone can have a preference and an opinion. Most everyone can find registered daylilies that they do not like. But so many are just beautiful.

I have seen daylilies that I thought were completely unappealing. There are certain forms that I don't like. And names I wished were on better looking plants.

And I've seen daylilies that I think should be registered, but won't/can't be.

With 85,000+ registered varieties I think there's something for everyone.

I don't want to tread on anyone's toes so hesitate to name specific cultivars. The ones that don't appeal to me are on opposite sides of the spectrum -- those that are quite garish and rather remind me of clowns, and those that seem just kind of pale and washed out. I do love some of the names!

the looks is a matter of opinion, but I do think it dishonest that many are registered that clearly have very poor bud count, bloom down in the foliage ect, and they often do not provide information or information that is inaccurate. Then you spend money on something only to find out later it is a dud. And a sneaky suspicion the hybridizer knew it. I have had plants that performed so poorly, I burned them, would not even give them away. Who is going to say, oh, my good friend, you'll love this plant that hardly ever bloomed for me, and when it did it was in the foliage and was a rust bucket?

Isn't it true that quite a number of Daylilies are not and never will be for sale?

I think they are registered by people who are not 'official' hybridizers and who just want to name a DL after someone they lost or for some other occasion.

All info in the database for DL's like that are not important than, is it?
But it is not possible to discern these DL's from DL's that áre for sale and who's stats áre important.
(unless you recogize the name of the hybridizer, of course )

Mayo

The registration of names for a daylily cultivar perplexes me. Here is an example :
Bold Encounter x Awesome blossom is registered under 4 different names:
Delia
Elite Circle
Francois Verhaert
William Robert Schister

How can this be?
Could someone enlighten me.

Katz, my guess is the 4 different names are all the same cross but are siblings.

KatzM said: The registration of names for a daylily cultivar perplexes me. Here is an example :
Bold Encounter x Awesome blossom is registered under 4 different names:
Delia
Elite Circle
Francois Verhaert
William Robert Schister

How can this be?
Could someone enlighten me.

I'll try.

Bold Encounter x Awesome Blossom describes a cross of two, named daylilies. Anyone with those two daylilies could have made that cross, and they would all identify the seedlings using a similar designation. In this case, four different hybridizers (Murdock, Stadler, Stamile and Zolock) happened to make that same cross, and from the seedlings which were grown, each selected a plant for registration. They may share certain attributes, but each of the 4 named varieties are genetically unique individuals.

@KatzM
The reason it is permissible to register four seedlings from the same cross is that the parents are not inbred lines. They are simply individuals from a cross-breeding population. So the seedlings are genetically different individuals, like the children in a family (except of course for identical twins, triplets, etc.).

admmad said:@KatzM
So the seedlings are genetically different individuals, like the children in a family (except of course for identical twins, triplets, etc.).

That makes it easier to understand I think for people new to daylilies.
Just to be clear, I don't think identical twins and triplets should be registered, but sometimes it seems they might be looking at how similar some plants are.

Do you guys mean that several siblings from a cross could be identical twins? In that case, would you just go eenie, meanie, mineie, moe, and keep only one? Or keep them all with one name?

I would definitely not register them under the same name. I would probably pick one to register and save the others maybe for a year or two and see if anything changed about them making them noticeably different and worth of a new registration under a different name.

Thank you, Larry, sounds good!

I think when Maurice said "identical twins" he was referring to humans who developed from a single egg that split, each resulting egg having same genetics. I'm not aware of that process happening with daylily fertilization resulting in identical seedlings.- Maurice I'm sure will correct me if I am wrong.

I once read of a study where someone tried to reproduce a certain intro by crossing the same two parents, and ended up concluding that the likelihood of getting something that looked identical to the intro from the same parents was 1 in 15,000. Something along those lines.

It is possible to get more than one intro-worthy seedling from a cross, even if it's not a particularly long cross. Some combinations of parents just turn out to be really good complementary genetics. (This may also explain why different hybridizers can get intro-quality kids from crossing the same parents.) You will see this happening where a hybridizer will introduce an intro, then a year or two later, introduce another one from the same cross (and pod) often calling it a "full sib". But the siblings, though they share the same parents and same pod, are not identical - they can have quite noticeable differences in bloom, height, branching, bloom season etc.

RobLaffin said:I think when Maurice said "identical twins" he was referring to humans who developed from a single egg that split, each resulting egg having same genetics. I'm not aware of that process happening with daylily fertilization resulting in identical seedlings.- Maurice I'm sure will correct me if I am wrong.

@RobLaffin
You are absolutely correct I was referring to human identical twins from a single egg that splits.

In plants it is possible to have two or more embryos in a single seed (called polyembryony). There are apparently quite a few different ways for that to happen but it is possible for two seedlings from one seed to be genetically identical. I would expect that two seedlings from one seed is rare in daylilies and I would expect that they probably would not usually be identical, but we do not have any information.