kousa said: Can you offer insight on foliage type? Say I cross a dormant with an evergreen, what resulting foliage type can I expect from the seedlings? Does a dormant + an evergreen make semi-evergreen? Does foliage type determine hardiness of a daylily? Is it true that most evergreen are not hardy?
@kousa
First question would be - diploids or tetraploids?
Stout worked with diploids; he indicated "evergreen" was "dominant." Theoretically that would mean that if you crossed a registered "dormant" with a registered "evergreen" the seedlings should be either 50% evergreen or 100% evergreen. It should also mean that crossing a registered "dormant" with a registered "dormant" should only produce 100% "dormant" seedlings.
Whether that was the case originally, when Stout made his crosses, is unknown. He published his results but he did not do enough crosses to validate his conclusions. We can examine the information in the AHS registration database to determine if Stout's conclusion is correct for diploids. In a sample of registered diploids with information about both parents there were 1846 registered diploids that were from "dormant" x "dormant" crosses. Of those 1508 were registered as "dormant", 61 were registered as "evergreen" and 277 were registered as "semi-evergreen". There should not have been any evergreen or semi-evergreen. Those numbers are 82% "dormant", 3% "evergreen" and 15% "semi-evergreen". We might assume that the 3% evergreen are misidentification but what are the 15% semi-evergreen?
In registered diploid daylilies with two registered parents, one of which was "dormant" and the other "evergreen" their registered offspring were 43% "dormant", 25% "evergreen" and 32% semi-evergreen.
The percentages do not fit any reasonable, simple inheritance rules. Part of the problem is that there should be no semi-evergreens - they should be "dormants" or "evergreens". So semi-evergreens, for a genetic analysis would have to be identified as to which ones were "evergreens" and which ones were "dormants". Genetically semi-evergreens should be reclassified. Most reasonably "semi-evergreens" are probably "dormants" that simply have leaves (perfectly normal and reasonable). In which case "dormant" x "dormant" gives 100% dormant (the 3% evergreen would be considered errors in classification) and that fits with Stout's suggestion. However "dormant" x evergreen (or vice versa evergreen x "dormant") should give 100% "evergreen" in some crosses and 50% "evergreen" and 50% "dormant" in other crosses. Ratios of 75% "dormant" and 25% evergreen do not fit. Combining the semi-evergreens with the evergreens to give 43% "dormant" and 57% evergreen contradicts the classification for the semi-evergreens in the "dormant" x "dormant" crosses.
Its difficult to decide what the genetic situation is, but you could use those percentages above for what to expect from "dormant" x "dormant" crosses and "evergreen" x "dormant" (or vice versa) crosses, at least for diploids.
I expect that most registered semi-evergreens are "dormant-capable" daylilies that have kept their leaves for longer.
Foliage type does not determine winter hardiness. However, where a daylily is hybridized and where its parents, grandparents, etc. were hybridized will have an effect on its hardiness. Daylilies hybridized in the south on average will not be as cold hardy as those hybridized in the north no matter what their foliage type (deciduous or evergreen). The more generations have been hybridized in the south without hybridizing with northern hybridized daylilies the less adapted to colder winters and the more adapted to milder winters the hybridizing populations will become. Their growth habit (dormant or evergrowing) will also not determine their winter hardiness.
When I purchase daylilies for my zone 4 location I do not even bother to look at the growth habit/foliage registered information. A daylily will either grow acceptably well here or it will not. Some hybridizer's daylilies may not do as well here as other hybridizer's daylilies.
