Oh what a great set of pictures! I've just been rushing around to hybridize, water, etc., this morning when I took a quick break and saw them. Would you be willing to get or have the species pictures you post here in this thread sent to the database? There are detailed instructions on how to do that (and it earns 1.5 acorns, as well... just saying ) or I'd be happy to nominate them as they appear (only earns .5 acorns). Instructions are in this post: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

I'm wanting so much to get back to this and find myself in a pondering-learning loop as the blooms are also keeping me buzzing around (must be nearing "peak time" here ... huff, huff).

Woo Hoooo!!

I finally took the plunge and am reading Chapter 3! Unfortunately, I do have a case of Latineseophobia and Math-perterbashionism – both very painful and debilitating conditions. So, I present only my halting yet happy immersion into the joys of understanding Genetic Principles and Applications. I am sure I will be furiously re-editing as I iron out the kinks that happen during my learning curve in this chapter (itz just the way I like to work!), and will need to revisit at least once or twice for a total overhaul and reworking of my thoughts … but that is all part of the learning process, huh?

*…sprays on some jargon-repellant and peers through a pair of handy binoculars into the jungle ahead…*

Oh, okay, we are in luck … helpful graphs and some newfangled terminology that they call, I believe, English! Hmmm. Well, here goes then!

Chapter 3 – Make no mistake about it, it's all about Genetic Principles and Applications (as they were understood by the author at the time this draft was penned in 2009 blah blah so on and so forth and thank goodness I wasn't a PhD student at MIT at that time or I would surely have slowed the group down a bit!).

Okay, still with me? You think I am procrastinating?!?! Huh! Okay, okay fine …. I am starting out slowly to work my way through without getting lost in the forest - and I'm sure you would do the same …

It does appear that there are two ideas about genetics that are helpful landmarks set out for us in this book; at least that's what I saw when I first dared to peek. One idea is that genes, and the way in which their chemical structures and processes work, can be looked at in a functional way (just the way they appear to work in nature) rather than to tackle the perennial frontiers of laboratory tube theory and experimental benchwork. That’s good, because I don’t keep a bunson burner stocked in my kitchen-sink science kit and I appreciate being a benchwarmer until I get the basic lay of a landscape. The other fundamental idea is that those same daylily genes, and the chemicals they produce, cause various colors to appear (or not appear) in the flower.

Alrighty … that wasn’t too painful. I think I’ve heard something similar to these ideas in the news once or twice, maybe even in a classroom or science lab back in the day (yes I did finish high school!) - though - don't ask me to swear to it. But, uh oh, here comes Concepts and Definitions … I just knew that Latinational terminology would sneak around the corner to devour me into a bottomless pit!

Let’s appraise the damage, then.... Chromosomes … genes … and, uh oh, that word … “sex” !! … and ayah, genotype and phenotype, they reared their heads again too (lessee … pheno is physical, geno is genetical). Huh, two whole pages done and I’m still okay - my friend Merriam Webster didn't have to intervene at all. So, here we go then:

The chapter begins with something pretty familiar – our human chromosomes and genes – so that we can think more easily about a daylily's counterparts and learn things that will be helpful down the road when we get around to dabbing pollen. Humans have 22 different kinds of chromosomes in our cells, with one set of them passed on from each parent (plus one sex chromosome to make a total of 23 kinds from each parent). That means that the total contribution from both parents ends up girding us with 46 chromosomes. Mom and Dad's individual 23 sets pair up together in that classic "X" formation with each other. Likewise, the parents of hemerocallis give a base number of 11 chromosomes each (but sadly, no sex chromosome … or maybe that’s kinda kewl actually, eh?) resulting in a basic diplomat set of 22 in each offspring. Thus, it is Us 46 Versus Them 22. Well, hey, at least we still may hold a slight edge with our complex and subtle human genetic codes - - go humans!! But, Hah! Another latin word slipped right by us, hemerocallis ("beauty for a day" or so says babelfish).

In both human and beautyforadayallis (oh, gentle pause here, to acknowledge that maybe there is some simplifying principle to dead languages after all) those chromosomes house "spiral ladder" shaped strings that contain thousands of genes that were part of each parent's inheritance. The contribution of these genes is to encode instructions which then define how our physical beings are made and maintained.

Since each and every single plant carries its own unique set of melded genes and chromosomes, then, science has worked out different ways to think about how those hidden genes and chromosomes may match up to, and be responsible for, so many different phenotypical attributes we see, like in our daylily cultivars. By looking at this scientist's approach, we encounter even bigger questions about how we have chosen to define what a plant species actually is, or what is meant by a cross versus a hybrid, since we can observe how the mixing of genes is done in different ways and sometimes with new and differing results. The same thing holds for what is really meant within the hybridizing world – whether we are creating totally new hybrids between species plants, or perhaps are instead breeding new cultivars when we choose line-bred mates to create new generations and forms. Those ideas will be looked at further, and sorted out on our behalf, so that we can follow and grasp the terms that will be used to illustrate the genetics of hemerocallis.

Whew. I don’t know about you, but I am just exhausted from all the worry I had about whether I'd be able to follow the vocabulary and examples in this chapter. What a relief - but, I’ll need to replenish my energy now with some raw carrots before I peer down the barrel of a microscope to see what this all leads to. I suppose I do look forward to the wonder and the magic of this journey, even if it means learning a few more vocabulary words in OkayLatinese, if only to witness the unveiling of the inner workings of daylily cells, bonne home to those mysterious genes and chromosomes.

*munch, munch … *



--> insert wiki media Commons License here for obligatory photo op out of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... -- oh click it, it's helpful!

You are brave Tina I don't think I could understand all of that myself. I love science but that seems very deep to me.

My head is all befuddled, but my lips have a smile on them. Don't know what I read, but I seemed to have enjoyed it. Really got a kick out of the phrase "before I peer down the barrel of a microscope"... like taking aim on understanding all this.

Well, right now this seems to be more about genetics than I really want to know or can digest, but this morning I found minor (the tall grassy leaved one) flava or lilioasphodelus and middendorfs has been in bloom for a week and various plants that I bought as minor but look like a smaller middendorfs and my concern now is trying to decide what to cross with what (I haven't planted the seeds from last year yet) and how to get earlier reds and eyes. Maurice tried to explain to me once how I got a red from two yellows and I may have understood part of it. The thing is the actual work of crossing and raising the seedlings is what I need to concentrate on now, minor and flava open evenings for instance tho I got a bunch of seeds last year. I'm puzzled by pictures of aurantiaca as the pics look more like one I bought as rosea. Doesn't rosea figure in a lot of early hybrids?I have never posted a photo here (and my camera doesn't work and I'm on a day old new computer) but I'll try to post what I bought as rosea.--Weedy

WeedySeedy: Hi, and to ATP (All Things Plants)! Thanks for sharing your pictures. Perhaps Terry or others will be able to make some observations about the species they may be. And, If I understand correctly, you may have four questions in all:

1. How to know what species you actually have.
2. How to choose two of those different daylily species to cross in order to get red eyed, red petal flowers that bloom during the Early or Extra Early season (or did you mean that you hope for Early Morning Openers that occur during any part of the blooming season?).
3. How to understand why two yellow species may be the ones that may produce that red-eyed, red flower.
4. How to cross the chosen species plants even if they have very different blooming times (for example, nocturnal crosses with diurnal daytime bloomers)?

Is that a fair summary of what you'd like to learn about? If so, you are probably in good company ... we are all hoping to learn how to increase our chances for producing flowers that we would like. It may be helpful to struggle along with the rest of us for a while as we try to understand some basic genetics information. If we can get to a point where we understand the core concepts, we'll have more tools to help guide us toward our goals.

Cindy: I think anyone who tries to understand concepts about tings that we cannot readily see (the hidden genes and chromosomes) is very courageous. It can be very hard to even understand that such things exist, until some external event results in some remarkable pattern showing up (inherited diseases, growth and maturation, different sibling's eye colors, etc).

Seedfork: I'm still smiling, too, as I work on understanding the whole "genes and chromosomes" thing (I love the "taking aim on understanding" you mentioned - what a great phrase to motivate and focus the learning process!). Sometimes re-reading chapters will do it for me, and at other times I try to find videos that might help me just suddenly "get it". There is one from Scientific American that, after watching a couple of times (only 2 minutes long) started to get the concept a little clearer for me, at least so I think. From it, I will summarize again what I think are the two basic levels found in Daylilies, and this matches up with what is in the first few pages of Chapter 3:

1. Inside each cell that makes up a daylily, there is a nucleus that contains twenty-two chromosomes that pair up with each other (11 inherited from one parent will pair up with the 11 inherited from the other parent).
2. Inside those paired chromosomes from the parents are copies of the parent's genes which then interact and function as the blueprint for building and regulating the form of the child plants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

From another video, there was an analogy of two sets of encyclopedia books (11 volumes in each set), with the information that is inherited from each parent. Each offspring, then, has a combined set of matching volumes (some of the chromosome "volumes" contain blueprints for making scapes of a certain height, others are for color, and so on). By combining those two sets of encyclopedias we will get some information from one parent that overrides or silences the other's set of instructions, or sometimes both will mix their information together in a new way that shows up in the offspring. Even when one parent's information is overridden, the data is still there and might show up later in another generation. And, when two parents create many offspring, each may show different parts of those bits of hidden information.

What we hope to learn by understanding something about these genetic functions is how to increase our odds at having crosses that will override for the specific instructions we want (color, height) and silence those that we don't want (disease, weak scapes). So, we are in search of which volumes of the encyclopedia contain those instructions, and then want to use that information to choose parents that have similar instructions (seen or unseen, as long as they have the data, as it may yield the desired results).

Hope that is a legitimate analogy, and makes some sense? ...

Weedy!!!!

Welcome back, Weedy.