Is a Blue Daylily in Your Future?
When I was a child practically every article of clothing that I had in my closet was blue. It continues to be a favorite color of mine. Ragged Robins (Bachelor Buttons), Delphiniums, and Blue Scabiosa, along with flax are some garden favorites of mine. I purchased HITES NEAR BLUE and PRAIRIE BLUE EYES in the early 1990's. Now, why is it so hard to get a blue Daylily? Let us explore what creates the colors in flowers and see if we can determine just why it is so difficult. Most of the following information came from the book, The elusive BLUE DAYLILY.
Hemerocallis Pigments
Carotenoid pigments like carotene and lycopenes are very common. Carotene creates the orange color in carrots and lycopenes in tomatoes. These pigments are are not water soluble so they are present in the plastid plant membranes and not in the aqueous sac or vacuoles. You can test this when you squeeze an expired Daylily bud. No color will be in the fluid, which comes from the aqueous sac or vacuoles.
Anthocyanidin pigments are highly colored water-soluble pigments. They occur in the aqueous sacs and vacuoles. This time when you squeeze the expired flower, the liquid is intensely colored.
The Anthocyanidin pigments include: pelargonidin (orange), cyanidin (Red), delphinidin (purple, blue), peonidin (red), and malvidin (purple, blue).
Flavones and Flavonols are another important set of ancillary plant pigments. They are not highly colored, but posess the characteristics that result in white, ivory and cream, and pale yellow.They influence the results of coloration which is produced by the anthocyanidins present.
OK. How does all this work to create a blue Daylily. Look at the table below.
RED As Pollen parent
| EYES | BUFF(TAN&BROWN) | PEACH(APRICOT&COPPER) | LAVENDER(PURPLE) | LAVENDER-PINK(ROSY-PURPLE) | RED | PINK | YELLOW | MELON | BI-COLOR | - | |
| RED X MELON | U | - | - | U | U | F | U | - | F | U | |
| RED X YELLOW | U | U | F | U | U | U | U | F | U | U | |
| RED X PINK | - | - | - | - | - | F | F | - | U | - | |
| RED X RED | - | - | - | - | - | F | U | - | U | - | |
| RED X LAVENDER-PINK (ROSY-PURPLE) | - | - | U | U | F | R | U | U | U | - | |
| RED X LAVENDER (PURPLE) | - | - | U | F | F | U | U | U | U | - | |
| RED X PEACH (APRICOT&COPPER) | - | - | F | - | - | U | U | U | U | - | |
| RED X BUFF (TAN& BROWN) | - | F | F | - | - | U | U | U | U | - |
Pay particular attention to the the RED X LAVENDER (PURPLE) row. This is the one we are going to look at.When the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University did research on whether or not the necessary purple partner (e.g., delphinidin or malvidin) was present in modern Daylilies, the answer was a resounding yes. They analyzed many purple, magenta, red,and orange flowers to produce this result. Now according to their research, you should select a Daylily with the highest concentration of delphinidin. Cyanidin components would produce more mauve in the blue co-pigment.
Latest Articles