Hi Vickie-
Heavenly Frontiers is the first known Pentaploid. (It is registered as Tetraploid because AHS did not have a Pentaploid option, but the description notes its actual ploidy.) The Heavenly Gardens website explains, "Flow cytometer results puts Heavenly New Frontiers(G1) between Tetraploid and Hexaploid, which makes it a Pentaploid (5x DNA Ploidy). Pentaploids have 5 sets of chromosomes, 55 for a daylily." Jamie says, "It is extremely pod and pollen fertile. Its pollen sets on 3.5x, 4x,5x ploidy with ease." Crossing across ploidy levels is still in its infancy; the other parents of the currently registered kids of Heavenly Frontiers are Tets.
His website
https://plantploidy.com/news.h... suggests that when plants are being chemically converted from diploid to tetraploid the process can actually create a mixture of cells with different ploidy. (This is called a chimera, which has tissue that genetically contains at least two different sets of DNA.) Jamie describes separating three fans of a cross he made that were 3x (Triploid), 4x (Tetraploid) and 5x (Pentaploid). "We were able to cross the 4x fan with normal tetraploids and were able to cross the 5x with 3.5x and 5x plants."
"The theory is cells at the apical meristem (growing point) of converted flowers can when dividing yield different ploidies. Mixed ploidy is why many of the flowers we buy are hard to use. Ploidy deviation can be caused in making tet conversions, the use of BAP and Pre-Emergents herbicides and, of course, nature."
"To make matters even worse," he says, "recent testing indicates that incomplete pairs of chromosomes and/or chromosome segments result from chemical conversion. The consequences are plants with partial ploidy or a chromosome numbers outside the normal homologous pairings."
The flow cytometer has opened up new possibilities for hybridizers. According to his website Jamie has "identified at least 7 haploids," which he posits "may be a way to make rust resistant daylilies."