I have some pistil questions...

This is the third day in a row that I've had bent pistils on my Black Plush daylilies. The season started out fine and, as far as I can tell, two days ago was the first time the bent pistils have showed up, but it's becoming a regularity. Is it the cultivar, the continuous hot weather (I have been watering each day though), or something else?



Also, my Olallie Reds have a pistil that looks different than most of my other daylily plants. Most daylilies have a stigma with three little parts...mine has a stigma with two parts and then the third part is further down the pistil. I think this also happened with either my Matchless Fire or Fear Not and one other daylily I have. It's strange. It doesn't seem to result in infertility since I have seed pods forming on Olallie Red (although Olallie Red isn't exactly my most fertile plant)...but I wonder why it's like that and if the 'stigma' that's further down is receptive and maybe a faster/better way of pollinating it since it's closer to the ovary. Does anyone know anything about this? (You have to look closely, it's the little bump on the left part of the pistil in this picture...it was the best I could do to capture it without taking the pistil off.)

I have had this happen to me, and I don't know what causes it. If I am trying to hybridize them, then normally the bent ones won't take, but if I put pollen on every part of the split pistil.

Seems to be a large amount of split and bent pistols here in zone 9a this year.

Maybe weather is causing it?

We've had hot days and cooler than normal nights.

I have had my share of them too. On the split pistols, I do as Jon does and pollinate them all.

Jon, Pat, and Cindy, thank you for the input! So weather might be causing my zig-zaggy Plushy...it's strange that it hasn't happened on any other cultivar I have, but I'll just count myself lucky on that one, then! As for the two-part pistil...I've pollinated both parts on a few of them, but then I only pollinated the top part on others. I wish I'd kept track of which ones I did which to. Fortunately, Olallie Red still has a good number of blooms, so maybe I'll keep notes and see if there is any difference in pollination results depending on if I pollinate both or just one.

Fol de rol consistently has the zig-zag issue. I have yet to set a pod on the numerous blooms it produced. BUT ... it is pollen fertile! I am thinking it might just be pod sterile.

Becky, that is a real good way of describing the pistol as a zig zag cause that is exactly what they look like. Mokan Butterfly has very few normal pistols. They are always zig zag.