Mary asked a question about doubles which prompted me to post. Since doubles and polys are close to my heart, here's some info. Please add/correct if you can.

David Kirchhoff taught me early on that tepals (petals and sepals) are formed in whorls at the base of a bloom. Single blooms have two whorls, an inner with 3 petals and an outer with 3 sepals. There are 2 basic forms of doubles, petaloid and layered/hose-in-hose. The petaloid have the normal two whorls, but some or all of the stamen have been converted into extra "petals". Layered doubles have extra sets of whorls with tepals stacked on top of each other. The following are examples of the two types; Barry Goldwater and Amanda's Little Red Shoes.



Polymerous daylilies have two whorls but extra tepals on each plus a stamen for each tepal. One can tell whether a bloom is fused or poly by counting the stamen. A 4x4 poly will have 8 stamen, a 5x5 will have 10 and a 6x6 will have 12, etc.


The last did have 12 stamen but I pulled a few to hybridize with.

Les, Your poly blooms are lovely~

Lovely!!

My understanding is a fused bloom will have more than one pistil; a poly will still have just one, even with numerous stamens.



Catapult Sam with a fused bloom (forgive the bad color, please...should be very dark in color); note the two pistils





Moving All Over, poly bloom







A particularly nice day for poly blooms on Light Motif

I have had regular blooms with 2 or 3 pistil which here we just call split pistils and these will not set pods that I know of.When I find these I just cut the bloom off.

Good explanation! Thanks for posting this!

Great info, thanks ~Jan

The fused blooms do look a bit odd. Here is one of Westbourne Butterscotch Ice Cream


This is a close up where you can see the multiple pistils


This is what it normally looks like.


These are the two blooms side by side.

I believe that Ice Cream Dream is a hose-in-hose daylily.

Thanks, Leslie, Katie and Michele! I haven’t been able to find an AHS definition of a fused bloom. But, perhaps I missed it. Your contributions help define the phenomenon! : )

Leslie: “One can tell whether a bloom is fused or poly by counting the stamen.”

Katie: “My understanding is a fused bloom will have more than one pistil; a poly will still have just one, even with numerous stamens.”

Michele: “I have had regular blooms with 2 or 3 pistil which here we just call split pistils and these will not set pods that I know of.When I find these I just cut the bloom off.”

Good information, thanks all.

As well, a fused bloom has two bases (twins) if you look at the back of the bloom.

I enjoy polys. Will enjoy them more with 10 tepals - it takes away the square look that some 4 polys have.

Have you ever seen CHEEK TO CHEEK?

I think it is the only polymerous double!

Just for interest, here is that Catapult Sam bloom as pods. Note that one is a regular pod and one is a 'poly' pod...haha...both pistils were fertile and not split. Catapult Sam, despite the masculine name is quite the fertile mom.




The bloom pictured earlier was on 71009 and the pods here were taken 72309.

Leslie, you might remember this one as I think I posted it on DG back in the day. We joked wondering if the poly pod would be more likely to produce poly seedlings. I'm ashamed to say that although I got a bazillion seeds, I didn't plant them (space, space, space).

Katie, Thanks for the information on the double pistils! BTW, what is the poly in your avatar? Love it.

Michele, I think double pistils in a fused bloom are different than what you are talking about. I've seen what you mean but I've always known split pistils as being single pistils who's tubes are split and they don't set seed.

Bobbi,
There are other poly doubles. The ones I know of are Polymultipetalicious, Schnickle Fritz, Forsyth Tepaled Double, Beware the Wizard, Mystic Jellyfish, Fin and Feather, Four by Four, Alternate Universe, Little Damsel and Little Wild Flower. I have all but LIttle Wild Flower so hopefully will have pics of the others later in the season.

Alternate Universe, the right bloom here is poly


Fin and Feather. This poly'd a lot for me last year.


Schnickle Fritz. This has run 35-50% poly for me the last 2 years.

Do you know if Cockspur is a poly double? It is listed as a double, but the picture I have of it looks like it also might be a poly.

I own it, but it has not bloomed for me yet so I don't have any of my own pictures.

This is the auction photo I saved.
Cockspur (KROPF-Tankesley-Clarke, 1991)


What do you guys think?

There is so much going on in that shot I can't tell. I have it too and will watch it this year. Thanks for the heads up! I wonder if Trickster ever polys?

Oh, thank you, Leslie. It is a seedling with great sentimental value to me. I wrote about it here (http://gottagarden.blogspot.co...) if anyone is interested. The poly is not common, but it occurred last summer when we had sufficient rain (for once!). The color is also a bit more saturated as a lot of things were last year. I am hoping to save it from the rampaging of my puppy, Rudy. It it moves well, the plan is to eventually share it with my sister and possibly the senior community where my mother lives. We shall see. My fingers are crossed.

For grins, I've started keeping a poly folder to put pics in when I come across one that does poly (or whatever). It's kinda fun to look back and see who did.

The only ones that seem to poly fairly reliably for me are Hildred West and Light Motif. LM will be moving soon, so it might sulk this year. Otherwise, it's just usually a happy occurrence...

I was wondering if you correspond with Pat Cochenour? She is here in Reg 3, up the road in northern VA, and a very nice person. Seems she shares some of your interests (grin). I have several of her daylilies and they do very well for me (as you might expect), although none of her polymerous ones.

I know Don Herr was playing around with them at one time, too, but I was thinking that I didn't see many last year when I visited his garden. He moves things in and out pretty regularly, however. And, of course, I could have just missed them...I was too interested in finding his daylily Candy Colored Curls that had won best in show the day before! Haha, sorry, I digress...

Thank you Leslie. You can't believe how many times I have asked !

I have seen S F, but not poly'ed.

"Polymultipetalicious" did you make that word up? Love it!

Katie,
I love the story about your dad. Whether you ever register that one or not by sharing it with your family and the adult community you are providing a wonderful tribute to him.

I had to laugh when I saw your comment about Pat. We've traded e-mails twice today already. We do have "things" in common, not the least of which is that we were both featured in national Russian horticultural magazine article on multi-form daylilies a couple of months ago. That was fun. They had to send us translations because we couldn't read the magazine. LOL

Don Herr is a real sweetie. He and I test for each other. I have several of his seedlings as well as almost all of his polys.

Bobbi, Polymultipetalicious is from J. Unger and was registered in 2007.

Anyone have thoughts on how to sort this one out? Its Purple de Oro, and its an FFO that opened two days ago (...my handful of starter daylilies all seem to be blooming out of their expected season this summer ...).

Apologies for the less-than-flattering photo, and the obvious fine-dining that has occurred on its petals.

What I'm wondering is whether this might be poly or layered doubling or just a random 'oops' or ?? I saw the four sepals and petals, but found only 7 stamen (perhaps I missed one).