I will see if I can and post it here. Most of the pods are aborted before a week old.
I usually gently pull the spent flower but now I'm trying to let them fall by themselves, and see if it makes some difference.
The four section pod seems healthy, it has a strange reddish color at the bottom. I have to check tomorrow in the mornig since now it's dark outside.
many thanks for your help!

@admmad, I took a picture of the neighbor's Stella:


This is a pod that's dying on my Stella, all did the same


Except for this (the biggest one), it seems it can survive. Maybe pods set on another fan are healthier, I don't know what's happening.


Many thanks for your help!

I'm sorry but it is a little difficult to compare the flower on your neighbour's plant with your flower. Is a photo with a larger flower possible in an orientation that is face-on so that the two flowers are easily compared.

Looking at this photo of your neighbour's Stella suggests to me that they are not the same cultivar, but that opinion may be affected by the flower size and orientation of your neighbour's Stella in the photo. Did you both buy your Stella plants from the same nursery and in the same year?

In any case, aborting pods mainly within a week of pollination is a characteristic of incompatible pollinations. That is very difficult to understand if both plants are true 'Stella de Oro'.

I tried to take a better shot. I don't know where she got her from, Stellas are sold in many garden centers.

Anyway I don't want to stress much, I just find puzzling that hers has a lot of pods and mine not.
Next flower open I'll find I'll try to pollinate it myself.
Pods can develop with other flowers' pollen or just with DLs, then abort if not compatible? I mean, a rose pollen can cause a pollination or it couldn't even start?


Many thanks!

cybersix said:Pods can develop with other flowers' pollen or just with DLs, then abort if not compatible? I mean, a rose pollen can cause a pollination or it couldn't even start?

Thank you for the second photo; I will compare them closely.
Your question is very interesting. The simple answer is that we do not know what the pollen from a different species would do. I expect that the pollen from a rose would not do anything - no pod would set at all. But the pollen from a Lilium ???? that might be very interesting to try. [Unfortunately there are no Lilium in our garden.]

Daylilies have what I consider to be a primitive self-incompatibility system. It would be more advanced if incompatible pollen (from another daylily or when its own pollen is self-incompatible) would be stopped before a pod was set (no pod set). Daylilies do not work that way. They set a pod (if they are pod-fertile) with incompatible daylily pollen and then abort it. We do not know what causes a daylily to simply set a pod. Although it may be unlikely, a daylily might set a pod just because pollen has landed on the stigma and the pollen grain germinated. It is more likely that pod sets because fertilization occurs.

Perhaps daylilies set pods if pollen from closely related species lands on the stigma - we just do not know....

Thank you Maurice, I was asking because now among mine and neighbors garden there are really few flowers in bloom.
The only DLs are the two Stella.
I know another neighbor has liliums but I can't see them, and I suppose they are not blooming now.
I have a delosperma coperi in bloom, so bees fly on it and Stella.

I have looked at the photos of the two plants and I do not think they are the same cultivar. Your neighbour's plant seems to have different shaped petals and sepals and their colour seems different from your plant. It is very difficult to be certain about flower colours as cameras and lighting can change the appearance. Looking at the two photos I see a difference in the green colour of the leaves so that makes it more difficult to be confident that the flower colours of the two plants really are different.

However, I am going to conclude that they are different cultivars. Yours is 'Stella de Oro' and your neighbours is some cultivar that is related to Stella.
I am going to assume that most pods on both plants are from cross-pollinations. That tends to be the case under natural conditions. We often assume that because Stella de Oro is self-compatible that most pods are from self-pollinations but simply looking at its seedlings can give us a clue about whether that is the case. For example, all seedlings of Stella that have red or other coloured eyes will have been from cross-pollinations.

We also tend to assume that because Stella is self-fertile that it will be compatible with all other daylily cultivars. That is probably not correct and in daylilies there is no reason why that should be the case. Stout looked at self and cross compatibilities in a set of sibling daylilies and there were four of 12 siblings that were self-fertile. However, even thought they were self-fertile all four were incompatible with some other siblings.

Theory 1. Pods on both daylilies are from cross-pollinations. Your neighbour's plant is compatible with Stella pollen. Your plant ('Stella de Oro') is not compatible with the pollen from your neighbour's plant. Some self-pollinations (by no means all) of your plant should produce mature pods and seeds.

Theory 2. Some self-pollinations are happening. Your neighbour's plant is self-compatible and some of its pods are from self-pollinations. The pods on your plant are nearly all from pollen from your neighbour's plant and that is not compatible pollen.

A proper test of any possible theory would need many flowers on your plant and pollen from your plant and your neighbour's plant.

In any case, seeds from self-pollinations or from pollen of your neighbour's plant would probably only produce yellow small-flowered seedlings; probably not what you were hoping for. You could use any seeds you produce from such crosses in learning how to grow daylilies from seed.

Thanks so much for your anlysis.
When I look at neighbor's DL I see the same plant as mine, maybe the color is richer on mine.
The latest pod that set on my Stella seem to be healthy, thet are growing.
I like small plants since I don't have so much space and almost all DLs are invading the little entrance path of the house with their long foliage!

I'm going to keep some seeds, especially from the pod which has developed four chambers instead of three (I remember there was a thread about 4 chambers pods I should search for it since I don't remember what these kind of pods mean).

I don't know why the pods now are going to be fine, perhaps Stella had a sort of weakness and now it's gone? Or bees have learned which pollen to carry
Many thanks again for your replies and for finding the time for me!

So, one year has passed and here I am with the same problem.

Stella de Oro aborts the seed pods again.
The first pod set was probably bee pollinated. It's 15-20 days old. It's starting to wrinkle and from green has become a strange sick green/yellow.

I pollinated another flower with Taffeta Mist and the pod is small but good. But I'm expecting it will do the same. Or maybe not, the past year all the pods aborted were self-pollinated I guess... So I will wait and see what will happen with the second pod.

I am really surprised because the bees pollinate mine and a lot of pods form. Are you sure it is Stella???

@Hemlady, if you read the older posts in this thread you will find photos and an opinion of @admmad on it. I think it's Stella. But I'm by no means an expert. It was my first DL and I bought it at a garden center in 2013.
I can't remember what it did the first year because then I was not interested in pods and seeds. I believe I killed every newly set pod I saw. But they do set, they live for a couple of weeks then die.

Why don't you try and set a pod on it with tet pollen just to see what happens. Could be interesting.

Ok. I'm gonna do a test with a self pollination made by hand so I am sure about it. And a test with a tet. Do you think it could be tet. Stella?

That's always a possibility, I would experiment with it.

Is there a way to see some pictures of tet. Stella? Is it like the diploid? I can't find much about it.

I am not sure there is a tet Stella, but testing your plant with tet pollen could tell you if it truly is Stella or not. If it takes tet pollen and forms a pod then I guess it could be a NOID.

A tetraploid version seems to be out there. But I can't find much about it. There's someone in Germany who sells it.

Oh, I did not know that. Well maybe you have the tet version and didn't know it.

I never thought about it.
But I thought that a not compatible pollen should not produce pods. Or maybe DLs don't work this way

Well sometimes they can be picky about which pollen they will set a pod with. I certainly would keep trying with lots of different pollens.