There was a note in the Daylily Journal some years ago describing the history of the sport and its ancestor for 'Willy' and 'Willy Nilly'. These were registered by Saxton in 1963, although the sport apparently occurred in the 1950s.
Willy (Saxton, 1963) height 36 in (91cm), bloom 5in (12.5cm), season E, Dormant, Diploid, Light pink self.
Willy Nilly (Saxton, 1963) height 38in (96cm), bloom 5in (12.5cm), season E, Dormant, Diploid, Spider Ratio 4.30:1, Light yellow with an underlay of pink.
Willy Nilly is not only a sport but shows small sectors of a darker pink/reddish occasionally suggesting that it may have a slightly active jumping gene.
See "Daylily sports - a rarity" pages 259-260 in the Daylily Journal, Volume 45, Number 3, Fall 1990.
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I'm going to make matters somewhat more complicated for interpreting what may be happening when flowers have sectors of different colours.
Usually one might consider that the differently coloured sections are either genetic or non-genetic (environmental, developmental, etc). When a genetic cause is considered we might think of somatic mutations or "jumping genes". These two can effectively produce new mutations (new phenotypes or characteristics, such as new flower colours). But there are other possible genetic causes. Some of those do not produce anything new. One of those is called somatic crossing over. An example of this for diploids would be if we have a plant that was say from a cross of a red with a yellow. The plant would be heterozygous, Rr but reddish flowered. In every cell of the plant, in every part, it should always be Rr. In somatic crossing over what happens is that during development, instead of producing Rr cells, one RR and one rr is produced. This would typically cause the appearance of the flower to change. It would have what are called a twin spot, one red and one yellow. But Rr is also red so it might be impossible to distinguish an RR spot from the normal Rr background. We might only see the rr or yellow spot or sector. In these cases there has been nothing new produced. The yellow spot is the same as the original yellow-flowered parent.
