Anybody has a picture(s) of muddy or hideously muddy ones, please?
Polymerous I thought the tongue was a cold climate thing! (ugh really dislike that)

I can't say that we really have a cold climate, although we do tend to have cool nights.

Re muddy or hideously muddy daylilies, that one seedling (a few posts back) was muddy. (I apparently did not take pictures of the really bad ones.)

Muddiness isn't always apparent in digital images, so showing images of muddy daylilies may or may not be useful.

Many years ago I had a somewhat polymerous seedling (about 66% or so) which, judging by the digital image, was reasonably clear in color. It was from a cross of the pink 'Missouri Memories' with a yellow polymerous seedling of mine (I think the seedling was the pollen parent); the real color was dull and muddy enough that I threw the seedling out. (Looking back, that may have been a mistake...)

I once bought a certain new introduction (the daylily and the hybridizer shall go unnamed), and the color, once the daylily finally bloomed, was unbelievably ugly and muddy. (I spent $$$ for this?!! ) I was still naive then as to the differences that sometimes exist between hybridizer images and reality , nor had I yet learned to discern (from either the digital image or the parentage) that a daylily might be muddy.... but I have to say that the bloom, in my garden, looked considerably worse than the hybridizer's image.

You simply can't trust digital images when it comes to mud - either that it is present at all, or the extent of it.

Polymerous, could you explain a little bit more in detail just what a muddy flower looks like. I have been hybridizing for about 15 years and I don't think I have ever come across one or if I did, I really didn't know what it was. I was thinking that muddy could be confused with a stippled flower in many cases.

I interpret muddy coloured flowers to be those that have brownish tones added to the underlying colour (not bright or pure). The flower colour tends to be dull. The flower colour is not clear. Some people (my wife is one) see what I consider muddy to be a positive rather than a negative. If I remember correctly she often describes the colours as antique.

Hemlady said:Another radical cross I did, just for the heck of it, to see what I would get.

FRANS HAL X NORTH WIND DANCER

Wow, that's great! I was always thinking about crossing Frans Hals with something, since it was so hardy and prolific! Amazing how those genes can combine, isn't it?

Well I am still trying to wade through the Good, the Bad and the Muddy so any pics anyone has of any of the three will definitely help me!

I was wrong... I did find a picture of one of the ugly orange sibling seedlings. (How those two daylilies came from the same cross is beyond me.)



How to explain mud? I'm going to draw on examples, using daylilies that were/are recently blooming in my garden.

To me, muddy daylilies are ones where the underlying (yellow?) tissue makes the overlying colors look dirty... or less clean... certainly less clear. I'm not sure if I have ever seen a muddy looking yellow or near-white daylily, though there are some that look cleaner, or clearer, than others. Recently I saw my first blooms on a gift plant of Mike Huben's 'Sunshine on Clouds'; those blooms were a very clear yellow.



Mud is possible in daylilies of other colors, and I've certainly seen it in lavenders, burgundies, some reds, and oranges. (The issue becomes a little murky with pinks and peaches (pun intended), though there are some of those which I think have underlying mud, too.) Meaning no disrespect to the hybridizer (and this is by far not the worst that I have seen), while 'Heavenly Dragon Fire' has great eye-attracting color when seen from a distance, close up, to my eyes, the color looks somewhat muddy.



Clarity would be the exact opposite of muddy. Today I saw my first bloom on Mike Huben's 'Let Me Be Clear', which is a very clear, pale pink. The bloom was almost ethereal.



Once you've seen clear color on a daylily bloom, you become sensitive to mud.

I might be all wrong, but that's how I see it, and that's the best that I can explain it.

Thanks. I think I have one I would consider muddy and again no disrespect for the hybridizer but it is Red Rueben Stevens. It just is not a sharp red as far as I'm concerned.
It actually looks better in this picture than it does in person.

I had to look up the parentage on that... it comes from a yellow ('Slender Lady') and a red black.

Pat Stamile once spoke at one of our local club meetings, some years ago. If I can recall correctly what he said, it was along the lines of some yellows having genes for mud, which weren't apparent in the yellows themselves, but which can make the offspring muddy.

I have been trying to set seeds on a (somewhat clear) red seedling of mine, crossed by either 'Hip to be Square' or 'Polly Wolly Doodle', both of which have 'Bill Norris' in the background. If I succeed, I am sure that the offspring is going to be muddy. If F1 is half mud (half the genes not from the red), then F2 would be quarter mud, F3 might conceivably see a return to clear colors, depending on the length of the crosses and what the parents in succeeding generations were. Trying to get the clear red color back while *also* keeping the polymerous trait (if any showed up in the F1), though....

Well I check back on this cross today and I have pods set!



Now if I can just get some seeds...

Cat said:Well I am still trying to wade through the Good, the Bad and the Muddy so any pics anyone has of any of the three will definitely help me!

Cat, I finally found a few images to try and help explain "muddy". Pink to me is one of the most common colors with visible mud. The base pink on the blooms in these three images go from extremely muddy, to muddy, to ...an almost clear pink.

Hmmm ... interesting photos, Char! I do like the muddy colors, too, but now I know what everyone is talking about when they say a bloom is a "muddy" color! Thanks!!!

Yes, that helps explain it a little better to me also. I do like the muddy colors also.

I really don't mind muddy colors either, except maybe in reds.

I think I lost my mind this morning--there were a dozen or so daylilies blooming and I sibbed, selfed,put tet pollen on two dips and finally found a Kwanzo with all six anthers free of the petaloids so I dabbed that on some rosea species seedlings. I may never recover, hacked off some ditch lily and found a bunch of seedlings I lost one November when my hands got too cold to line them out--- their sibling was blooming this AM so I crossed that with it's half sibling. Didn't label a thing but I will probably remember the half sibs----below

It will be fun to see the results of these crosses when they bloom!

Yes, I would really like to see the one's weedy did!

Having a strange week. First the nondaylily adventure. I went fishing with my oldest son in the canal and was catching sunfish and releasing them-and since they were swallowing the hook they were in pretty bad shape when I released them--in fact breathing their last gasp and thrashing about. The activity attracted a four foot or so brown water snake who insisted on coming right at me up the bank evidently thinking the fish were his (or her's) and I was a foe. A very determined and aggressive snake---I've never seen a snake actually bent on attack--poked it with my fishing rod and it bit it. Finally grabbed a fish too big to swallow and I thought the stand off was over. Then I hooked a small sunny and it came back seized it by the head and hooked it's crazy self. There I was with a squirming four foot snake mad as the devil. on my line. Cut the line with snipper, backed up the bank. The end. Daylilies. My back bed, which I call Eden after the Fall because it's got nettles, poison ivy, thistles, blackberry brambles and an occasional snake has been at peak bloom and has been wonderful this year, not only blooms but butterflies , hummingbird, dragonflies, first year blooming seedlings from older lilies, species, odd seedlings popping up--a real pleasure. This morning a daylily that I thought was striped bloomed an instead bloomed with multiple petals--so I ran out with the Kodak and got a couple rather badly colored shots (while being buzzed by the hummingbird who thinks th crocosmia and monarda are for him alone) In older photos the daylily is striped---this year it's multi petalled----Weedy

Weedy, SSsssorry about your run in with the Snakes. The blooms are Beautiful though!

Snakes can be VERY aggressive. Especially water snakes! Beware!

Your daylilies producing those extra petals is really cool! Looks like most of the blooms are doing that ! What are you feeding them? Radiation exposure? LOL! That is very bizarre, but makes the blooms look so full! Neato!