The first reference I have for the term "butterfly" is in the Floyd Cove 2005 catalog. Pat used butterfly to describe a new series of daylilies he was working on, he also had the "Candy" series. The Butterfly series were to be intricately patterned daylilies with high bud counts, branching and with a size in the same range as his "Candy" series. The first 5 in the series were Fractal, Metallic Butterfly, Optical Art, Quantum Singularity and Tholian Web. There is no official definition for "butterfly", just as there is no definition for "candy" and the use of the term seems to have spread to other hybridizers when describing their pattern daylilies and size, budcount and branching don't seem to be a factor, nor what type of pattern. I have seen it used in decribing several different variations of patterning and believe it to now be a general marketing/descriptive type term for any daylily with a pattern rather than for a specific type of pattern. Even the original 5 butterflies were different in their pattern expressions which would make it difficult to define as applying to only one specific pattern.
Personally I like it when used in general reference to patterns, they do look like beautiful multicolored butterfies in the garden.
