I just looked this up on the AHS website, showing an unregistered cross -
Daylily Cultivar - Scarlet Lace
Color: red with white bubbled and braided edge above green heart yellow ring throat
Parentage: ((Desperado Love × Wish Fulfillment) × Edge of Eden)
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Hi Mary. Scarlet Lace is a registered cultivar with three registered cultivars in its parentage. I'm sorry if I didn't state it clearly, but didn't mean you had to list unknown for a parent that is an unregistered seedling from a cross of two registered parents. You can always do that as Stamile did on Scarlet Lace (and which provided valuable information to buyers) - though the sdlg parent wasn't registered, its parent were, so he provided all that information. That's okay for seedlings of registered parents.
What I was saying is, if you use a daylily that's in commerce but is not registered (and therefore you also have no idea what its parentage is) then you must put "unknown" even though the parent is known, and grown, in commerce. Which is why you want the info on the hybridizer's site, because if an "unknown" parent is actually known and has been in commerce for many years, that's a different story from a situation where it's, say, a bee pod and the hybridizer literally has no idea and therefore there is a lot more uncertainty in what you are getting.
It's a matter of preference regarding how much information one wants for seedling parents. Some people may not like the long, drawn-out parentage but to me it is crucial information. There are certain cultivars out there that I do NOT want in my program - they may have a tendency to pass on undesirable traits that I want to avoid. And once you get a bad trait in there by mistake, it can be hell to ever get it out of your program. I have been very lucky with two excellent, experienced mentors, who have warned me off certain cultivars, or types of cultivars, and saved me many years of hard lessons. I always research the genetic lineage as far back as I can on everything I buy if I'm going to hybridize with it. In addition to avoiding unwanted genetics, I want to know the spectrum of colors that's in the line - that gives me an idea of colors I might be able to cross with it - sometime it indicates a possible cross when it otherwise would seem like an unlikely mix of colors.
There's no such thing as too much information in my book! Just my preference.
