Char said:
Sadly much of the attention to the Best intro's is due to the nasty attitude & bullying being inserted into any conversation about cristate forms and the constant barrage of misinformation posted to the internet over the past 10 years.

"Nasty attitude" and "bullying" - you are being too kind in your descriptions. There are many of us that were around when he first came onto the scene and have been able to watch the entire ugly saga unfold.

I would prefer, as many do, that this forum not disintegrate into people bashing that splashes in from social media. There are clearly personality clashes at play here that are clouding judgements. I think it unfair to judge a hybridizing program by the very first introductions made years ago. Clearly, Mr. Best is producing some very unique looks that are both northern hardy and fertile as I saw many seeds being sold this last season on the Lily Auction from seed sellers who made thoughtful crosses and who really liked his latest plants. I thought this was a wonderful step forward in promoting cristate forms. A person does not have to be likeable to have an interesting hybridizing program so I hope we can keep an open mind here. I certainly didn't intend to offend any particular hybridizer with my comment about cristate, dormant forms from northern programs not yet being state of the art.....it was written quite hastily and I should have expanded what I really meant. MANY people are working quite hard to stabilize a "young" form and I expect to see great things soon that are more consistent that takes the form to places it has never been before. The tetraploid area especially has been quite frustrating with more variables, it seems. I love Curt Hanson's work in this area! There are many hybridizers who had admirable programs who are toughing it out thru this frustrating first stab at creating something new!!!

I found Chris' posts very informative and agree that sometime in the future the definition of "cristate" may need a bit of tweaking as forms continue to change. LOVED your "Yes, no, or maybe" post, Maurice!!! It's sad, to me, that Mr. Best's forms cannot be found in simple searches. I was curious on how they were registered and saw that he was describing his "beards" as "appendages" in his registrations. That's an interesting term that I haven't considered before! Appendages might cover those random teeth that appear in the middle of petals some day, too!

was curious on how they were registered and saw that he was describing his "beards" as "appendages" in his registrations. That's an interesting term that I haven't considered before!

That rather makes one wonder what the objection is, then, to calling them cristate, which means (in botany) "bearing any elevated appendage on its surface"! (e.g. reference - Introduction to Structural and Systematic Botany, and Vegetable Physiology by Asa Gray, 1860).

Interesting, Sue

I would have no problem with modifying the current sculpt classifications to 4: 1) pleated 2) cristate 3) relief 4) other appendages

We will, in time, have other "appendages", I think.....raised areas on the petal surfaces that could fit there as well.....teeth, pimples, turkey feathers.....who knows what the future holds. I have had conversations with other hybridizers about taking seedlings that display random teeth in the middle of petals and crossing them together to stabilize that trait.

Davi, I recently posted a seedling pic on the June seedlings thread. This bloom had one large tooth right in the middle of a petal. Just one tooth on the entire bloom! Both parents are toothy on the edges of the petals, a look which I'm more familiar with, and starting to warm up to. Are you saying this random "one tooth in the middle" is a good thing?

Maybe I should not toss that seedling?

Just went back for a closer look at that bloom. The huge tooth is not in the middle of the petal, it's off to the side. But I still think it is weird.

josieskid,
I think the way things are with daylilies, anything odd, different and strange might lead to the next in thing in the future. So maybe you should not toss that daylily, but then again...how do you like it? Do you plan to do anything with it in the future? Is it just taking up space for something you had rather have?

Larry, you've given me a lot to think about. My sister said maybe it will get better with age, and my brother-in-law said he liked the color, so maybe I'll keep it around for awhile.

I'm just beginning to hybridize, so I still have room. And I'd like to go for something different. Come on though, that thing is ugly! I really thought that with two such beautiful parents, I'd get something nice. It does have two or three siblings. Maybe they will have a better color.

I've seen some really pretty teeth that protrude from the middle of the petal surface that are more than one color...matching the double edge of the flower. One in the garden this morning was just plain yellow on a pink daylily. I'm seeing these often enough that I think it may be the next thing that evolves. Other strange things are a single ruffle in places you would not see them normally....like the midrib on the back of the petal. Another fun aspect of seeing what's new in the garden each morning!

Did I miss a picture of the tooth-on-the-midrib daylily or any other quirky daylilies? I'd love to see the photos, but I am not seeing them when I scroll back to previous posts.

Davi said:
I found Chris' posts very informative and agree that sometime in the future the definition of "cristate" may need a bit of tweaking as forms continue to change..... It's sad, to me, that Mr. Best's forms cannot be found in simple searches. I was curious on how they were registered and saw that he was describing his "beards" as "appendages" in his registrations. That's an interesting term that I haven't considered before! Appendages might cover those random teeth that appear in the middle of petals some day, too!

Cristate, which means (in botany) "bearing any elevated appendage on its surface".

and the official AHS definitions for Sculpted cristate forms:

"Sculpted : A term used to describe three-dimensional structural features involving or emanating from the throat, midrib or elsewhere on the petal surfaces. Sculpted forms belong to one of three different groups: Pleated, Cristate and Relief."

"Cristate: A term that refers to appendages of extra petal tissue growing from the midrib or elsewhere on the surface of the petals."

Note the words "any", "three-dimensional structural features", "appendages", "petal" "surfaces", and "surface", in the above 3 definitions.

When the AHS Scientific Studies Committee and I wrote the definitions for Sculpted forms the appendages you described in your last post were already being seen. Cristate forms frequently produce odd bumps, teeth, fang or claw appendages.



Cristation on the back petal surface had also been seen, some on one side, some on both sides of the center petal back.

Petal front...........Petal back



In fact I registered one with cristation on the petals back surface, Beyond Origami which also is pleated and relief, in 2016. I also have a seedling Curt shared with me a long time ago which has the odd fins growing from various places on the petal surface.


Oddities have been seen and a few registered over the years, Moon Mountains was registered way back in 1996.


Another strange one was Move over Dolly.
http://www.distinctly.on.ca/pe...

Knowing these oddities were out there is what influenced the wording for the Sculpted definitions making them as inclusive as possible to allow for these and other strange things that may appear in the future. There is absolutely no need for "tweaking" or an "other appendage " group as appendages on the petal surface is the definition of the Sculpted cristate form.


Nothing truer, thoughts of seeing a bed of Sculpted form seedlings blooming will have you up at the crack of dawn....even before they're awake. Won't be long now before they'll be starting here.
Multicolored teeth on the petal surface sounds pretty cool.

Char said:That was a bit rude to the many hybridizers of northern hardy Tet cristate cultivars.... just trying to help you and others who may be reading this thread search for dormant and/or hardy cristate forms.

Yes, I agree Tet cristates need work, so do lots of things, but the dormancy, northern hardiness from northern hybridizers and color other than gold/melon/polychrome is there to start with... which are things you said you weren't aware of. Starched Petticoats will be a great addition to work in with all the other previously registered cristate cultivars and sdlgs. Another thing to keep in mind is that hybridizing in the north is a longer process than the south and northern hybridizers are working their sdlgs 4, 5 or more years ahead of what you might currently see registered. There are many good things to come!
Sadly much of the attention to the Best intro's is due to the nasty attitude & bullying being inserted into any conversation about cristate forms and the constant barrage of misinformation posted to the internet over the past 10 years.The dips are not without problems. Almost all the Best intro's are pollen sterile. Plant habit of the Best plants need work as well, the ones I have are small weak growers even though he claims they have been through tough northern conditions and they are not recommended for growing in the south. Southern cristate dips can be tender in the north and some of these also have the sterile pollen issues. Although there are other hybridizers besides Mr. Best making great progress with the dips, Mike Derrows program is very impressive... dips need work too.
The cristate forms are starting to gain interest now that they are an accepted Form of daylily. Hybridizing Sculpted cristate forms really is not much different then hybridizing any other form of daylily...we are all trying to improve the form with the plants we currently have available.

To be clear, the attention on Brad's new intro's are not due his "nasty attitude and bullying" but because they are gorgeous and stunning flowers. Period.

It appears a lot of bearded/cristate plants are pollen sterile. Mike Derrow is having similar issues.

I'd love to hear if anyone else is noticing that trend with their hybrization trials with bearded/cristate genetics.

Hello from KY, sorry I am late to the show but was pleased to find this new thread. I have a lot going on but who doesn't lol. I added Texas Feathered Fancy last Fall and it did make it thru this past crazy winter. It has not bloomed yet but I am hoping it will send you a scape soon. I love the look of the extras in the throat. I collect iris of all kinds and love unique plants.

Please post pics of your seedlings that are being developed. I am a dabber but nothing to show on this field (yet).

Chris

My tiny program has not experienced any pod or pollen infertility....but rather lacks focus on my part as my hybridizing for unusual forms gets the majority of my attention and has been more productive. I still set a few seeds every year on my cristate introductions as well as seedlings. AFTER THE RIOT is an easy pod setter and pollen is also good so it is an excellent parent if you are working with tets.

The pollen infertility that plagued the early dips was likely caused by a high degree of inbreeding that is necessary whenever you see anything "new" in form and there is nothing out there coming from different lines for outcrossing that can help with the fertility issues. I'm sure Maurice is better at explaining that. I was just lucky that Curt bloomed SIGOURNEY at about the same time that I had LITTLE BIG EARS appear in my garden so that we could do a trade. Crossing the two together helped produce fertile offspring.

Cpschult said:
It appears a lot of bearded/cristate plants are pollen sterile. Mike Derrow is having similar issues.

I'd love to hear if anyone else is noticing that trend with their hybrization trials with bearded/cristate genetics.

'Bee's Bettie Sue' is 'Joan Senior' x 'Barbara Mitchell' and is I believe pollen sterile.
'Michael's Sword' is 'Bee's Bettie Sue' x 'Lavender Blue Baby' and I believe is also pollen sterile.
Speculation:
That suggests that either the pollen sterility is "dominant" or that if it is "recessive" 'Lavender Blue Baby' also has the same mutation and may well be related (even if distantly) to either or both of 'Barbara Mitchell' or 'Joan Senior'.
There clearly has been inbreeding in the diploid Bee's Bettie Sue line. Inbreeding causes its own general decrease in fertility and increase in sterility but it also creates the opportunity for recessive genetic sterility to appear.
Inbreeding is probably being used by some to try to create more stability to the characteristic.

bluegrassmom said:Hello from KY, sorry I am late to the show but was pleased to find this new thread. I have a lot going on but who doesn't lol. I added Texas Feathered Fancy last Fall and it did make it thru this past crazy winter. It has not bloomed yet but I am hoping it will send you a scape soon. I love the look of the extras in the throat. I collect iris of all kinds and love unique plants.

Please post pics of your seedlings that are being developed. I am a dabber but nothing to show on this field (yet).

If you are on facebook I highly recommend the "Daylily Hybridizers Nook". Mike Derrow has been posing some outstanding bearded/cristate seedlings. I had messaged him about some pollen which led to a discussion about the pollen sterility issue he's been seeing! Char (on here) also has some great looking seedlings. Rich from CT Daylilies also looks like he will be having some awesome bearded/cristate seedlings.

Davi said:Chris

My tiny program has not experienced any pod or pollen infertility....but rather lacks focus on my part as my hybridizing for unusual forms gets the majority of my attention and has been more productive. I still set a few seeds every year on my cristate introductions as well as seedlings. AFTER THE RIOT is an easy pod setter and pollen is also good so it is an excellent parent if you are working with tets.

The pollen infertility that plagued the early dips was likely caused by a high degree of inbreeding that is necessary whenever you see anything "new" in form and there is nothing out there coming from different lines for outcrossing that can help with the fertility issues. I'm sure Maurice is better at explaining that. I was just lucky that Curt bloomed SIGOURNEY at about the same time that I had LITTLE BIG EARS appear in my garden so that we could do a trade. Crossing the two together helped produce fertile offspring.

I'm only working with diploids for the bearded/cristate side of genetics. And "working" may be to strong of a word. I've got two kids under four and my work schedule has increased significantly. I likely won't be doing many crosses this year. I'm running out of space too. Living in the city is for the birds!

admmad said:
'Bee's Bettie Sue' is 'Joan Senior' x 'Barbara Mitchell' and is I believe pollen sterile.
'Michael's Sword' is 'Bee's Bettie Sue' x 'Lavender Blue Baby' and I believe is also pollen sterile.
Speculation:
That suggests that either the pollen sterility is "dominant" or that if it is "recessive" 'Lavender Blue Baby' also has the same mutation and may well be related (even if distantly) to either or both of 'Barbara Mitchell' or 'Joan Senior'.
There clearly has been inbreeding in the diploid Bee's Bettie Sue line. Inbreeding causes its own general decrease in fertility and increase in sterility but it also creates the opportunity for recessive genetic sterility to appear.
Inbreeding is probably being used by some to try to create more stability to the characteristic.

I added a note to the first post drawing attention to potential sterility issues. Mike Derrow mentioned needing to cross out and then cross back in. Brad has said his latest generation of flowers are pod/pollen fertile. I don't have the budget to find out. Hopefully we will start to see seeds on the AH soon ;)

Some say Brad is a 'bully'. The only bullying I have seen is from the Curt Hanson followers. Imagine one hybridizer is being attacked from many people who have 'power' buttons. It is a personal vendetta against him at this point. It's sad really that such an influential hybridizer has been treated in such a way. Let's remember if it wasn't for the hybridizer there would be no AHS. Not the other way around.

The AHS dictionary against Brad's coined term 'bearded' is a wonderful example of this bullying taking place. I would say there is no such thing as sculpted either as sculpting requires work on a medium. We do no such thing in hybridization..food for thought.

sooby said:was curious on how they were registered and saw that he was describing his "beards" as "appendages" in his registrations. That's an interesting term that I haven't considered before!

That rather makes one wonder what the objection is, then, to calling them cristate, which means (in botany) "bearing any elevated appendage on its surface"! (e.g. reference - Introduction to Structural and Systematic Botany, and Vegetable Physiology by Asa Gray, 1860).

As a hybridizer, the main objection is crested and bearded are not mutually exclusive. The two said forms do not just go back and forth with looks in f1,f2,etc. You can combine the two, but that doesnt mean they are the same.

Some act as though the police are going to knock on their door if the say bearded. Bearded daylilies was never referenced to hairs. Bearded aloe, bearded dragon, bearded grasses are all commonly referred to dispite not having hairs.

That said, vision is everything. If it weren't for Brad's vision of stable bearding in dayliles... Mike Longo would have a lot less money in his pocket ;)

I saw this one today, GREETINGS EARTHLING. Fully bearded, but was told its slow to grow. It did have a nice scape and rebloom was growing.

EC seems to be a great bearded parent as seen by pics posted via fb. Mike is doing AMAZING things with this form taking it to Norris stuff. Jon Elliots WMC was seen today too and it was very nice. The pollen issue I think comes from both BBS and LBB. I find it to be about 25% of out cross kids to MS have it.

Emerald Starburst seems to have bearding hidden in it. A friend has a stable bearded kid with it and MS. I would recomend using it in this kind of program.

Does anyone know if any of the diploid cristate forms have been converted by anyone yet and who might be using these conversions in a tetraploid program?

DavidR said:

As a hybridizer, the main objection is crested and bearded are not mutually exclusive. The two said forms do not just go back and forth with looks in f1,f2,etc. You can combine the two, but that doesnt mean they are the same.

Can you elaborate, I'm not sure I understand what you mean? "Bearded" under AHS terminology would, I believe, be "surface cristate" whereas what people often call "crested" would be midrib cristate. So they can already be split into two different types under current AHS terminology.

DavidR said:
Some act as though the police are going to knock on their door if the say bearded. Bearded daylilies was never referenced to hairs. Bearded aloe, bearded dragon, bearded grasses are all commonly referred to dispite not having hairs.

The only reason the explanation of what bearded means in botany keeps coming up is because the use of two names for the same thing is confusing to people just getting into this kind of daylily. They go to look up daylilies using the search term "bearded" in the AHS Registry or NGA database and catalogues, for example, and find none are registered as such. They need to know that in AHS the official term is cristate so that they can find them.

So then the question is why does AHS not recognize "bearded", hence the explanation about its meaning hairs (or sometimes awns) in botany. Mr. Best's plants clearly do not have hairs or awns.

I don't understand your sentence "Bearded daylilies was never referenced to hairs", could you explain what you mean? The choice of terminology for different types of daylilies is the AHS's responsibility. The only person who has made a fuss about terminology is Mr. Best himself.

In a sense this seems to be going against his own interests because of the confusion being caused to potential interested parties/purchasers by having two terms for the same thing.

Of the examples you gave, perhaps you could explain what these examples are meant to convey? Bearded aloe, Aloe aristata, has awns at the tips, hence the specific epithet aristata (which means having an awn or bristle at the tip), bearded grasses also have awns. An awn in my botanical terminology text is defined as "a narrow, bristlelike appendage, usually at the tip or dorsal surface". The AHS has always included in the Daylily Dictionary that having an awn/awns can be referred to as "bearded" and that neither apply to daylilies. You can clearly see the tip awns on this picture of Aloe aristata.



What is a "bearded dragon"? I'm only familiar with the reptile and a Google search did not turn up any plants. Herpetological terminology is not relevant to plants, the AHS abides by standard botanical terminology.