Just outa curiosity. I've always wondered.
When someone "registers" a new named Daylily, is there any kind of check to see if it doesn't already exist?
I'm noticing that a lot of them look so much alike as to be almost identical. Is the only stipulation that the name doesn't already exist?

No regulations that I know of. Listing the parentage would help to some extent but a lot of hybridizers don't list parentage so that could be difficult to regulate. Even if parentage was listed though, there are hundreds of possibilities from one cross.

There is no way for the registrar to know it the daylily or any other flower has been registered before. I do not know why a person would pay $15 to register something that's already on the market, it couldn't be for money, its hard enough to market an original. There are a lot of look-a-likes out there, its becoming harder and harder to come up with something different with over 70,000 already registered.

The thing is you can get two daylilies that look almost identical and have NOTHING in common with parentage (from two different hybridizers) and then you can have the same parentage and have two totally different looking daylilies. As Hemlady said, there are hundreds of possibilities. IMHO, if it were to be regulated that no two daylilies could look alike then there would be a whole lot less hybridizers and the prices would sky rocket. The AHS registrar has a regular full time paying job so he doesn't have time to go through all the daylily photos to make sure none look the same (some do not have photos). And the hybridizers surely don't have time to look at all of them either. The two daylilies I have that could be identical from two different hybridizers and parentage were registered the same year, so the hybridizers would have no idea that theirs looks like someone elses when they went to register it. Even though they may look the same, there could be differences such as bud count, branching, bloom season, foilage habit. My two have different heights, branching, and bloom seasons (ones EE and the other is M).

I knew you would chime in Fred. I was typing while you were posting.

Well said Michele.

WELL EXCUSE ME!! Well said tink, I told you guys before she's smart as a whip.

I've learned from the best............Kathleen

Fred, you've helped a little too

This is the reason that I am a firm believer that you can't ID a NoID unless you had a list of what daylilies you owned, and somehow the tags were lost. If someone moves to house where there are daylilies growing, and they want to have someone ID them - I think that is just impossible.

There are SO many that look similar.

One might register a "look alike" because it has better bud count, or the scapes are better branched, or it performs better in your area.

I agree Juli, when people post a photo to find out what it is I don't even reply.

It's the same with irises. People over on DG, especially, are constantly asking for iris ID, and we just can't. Now if they have a list of what they purchased, and lost a tag, like Juli said, then we'll give it a shot.

But we have found in lilies (lilium) that there are re-registers from the Netherland growers. I don't thinks so intentionally in iris. So, I'm glad to hear it's not something done in daylilies.

We get that lots and lots on Gardenweb. Some person that is usually not even a regular will post some pictures and ask what their daylily is. Usually with no information on height or bloom size or anything. In defense of some newcommers they might not even realize that it is not possible to know. Not everyone is a gardener or knows about daylilies. But we also get peole that do know more that list lots of ID me type of posts. Oh well.

That is why I have no desire to figure out the names of the daylilies on that property my sisters & I inherited. Sure, they have been self hybridizing for 50 years. But, the ones that are still in the visible rows are registered. But there are no records.So forever they will be...NoID's.

And there is nothing wrong with No IDs. All that matters is that one likes the daylilies in their own garden.

There are a few that are really distinctive, and I would know anywhere. But not many - to many people have intro'd similar looking kids, or sibs. Primal Scream comes to mind as really distinctive.

If a sib or kid has more buds, better plant, or rust resistant, nothing wrong with registering it.

Yes I agree. There are a few daylilies that you just know them from looking. Velvet Eyes comes to mind along with Real Wind, Lavender Blue Baby, Magic of Oz. They all have something distinctive about them. But all the pinks or reds with gold edges, forget it. It would be impossible. A lot of the Candy series are recognizable too.

Newyorkrita said:And there is nothing wrong with No IDs. All that matters is that one likes the daylilies in their own garden.

Well said Rita.

Newyorkrita said:And there is nothing wrong with No IDs. All that matters is that one likes the daylilies in their own garden.

I used to have a few that were NoID. I used to have a sales garden here. A couple of the NoID were ones people always wanted. I never sold them. I did give them as bonus plants, but made it clear the ID was unknown. They had been known at one time, but I had tags get mixed up, or lost.

Now that I have the AAA markers, they don't break or upheave in the winter. I do have maps also.

Once, I had a beautiful daylily come up in an aisle. I thought it was a seed that had fallen and germinated. It was a tiny fan, and I put a little cage around it so it would not be stepped on. Once it was big enough, I moved it so it was in a bed, not the aisle. When it bloomed a couple years later, it was beautiful! It did remind me of the "Hanson" look, so I figured one of his was a parent. We gave it the garden name "Aisleway Beauty."

When visiting Curt's the year after it bloomed, I noticed a plant that had blooms that looked so similar to Aisleway Beauty. It was One More Heartache. Since I grew it at one time, I figured it had to be a parent. When I looked at my maps, I found One More Heartache had been growing right by where Ailseway Beauty came up. Then we figured it out! I think when One More Heartache was dug, one little piece of root and crown must have fallen off, and been stepped on, pushed into the ground and accidentally planted. I bought another piece of One More Heartache to compare it to, and they were identical. I did not give it the name One More Heartache, though, because I could not be 100% sure it was not a seedling. I composted Aisleway Beauty.