Decorative elements of the perianth

Endings of the petals’ edge

The term “edge” of the inner areas is more accurate, than the commonly accepted in our country name “frill”. It derives from an incredible variety of morphological solutions by which nature (with the participation of the breeder) decorates nowadays edges of the daylilies petals. Decorative edges have become one of the most important, if not the most important decorative element of the flower, and although in some part of the variations they match to the name “frill”, in other, not less attractive, it doesn’t match. Popularity of the term “frill” is associated with the beginnings of the breeding works, when gentle undulation of petals edges was the only morphological feature that decorated the edges of daylilies. Evolution of this concept is presented in fig. 63,  where the collection of unicolor daylily variations with the Fig. 63 Frill of the old and modern daylily variations

Pineapple Moon

Because of You

Tropical Breeze

Chang Dynasty Fall

frill from the 60s of the last century has been compared to the analogical variations from the recent years. On this basis, we can define the frill as the horizontal corrugation of daylily flower edges with diverse width (fig.64). Fig.64 Traditional frills of the daylily flowers

Siewka Agin (a)

Our Friend Jim Saddler (б)

Spacecoast Starburst (в)

Tequila Sunset (г)

Traditional morphological frills are similar. Horizontal corrugations of petals’ edges in the most perfect case are regular and uniform throughout all of their area. They appear in many variations of daylily flowers, of all modernly accredited breeders of those flowers, in renditions more or less close to the ideal. It should be noted that in some variations the frill tends to deviate from the horizontal facet towards vertical facet (c,d), making an angle with the petal’s facet that is headed towards the right angle. Model solutions of classic frills can be seen in the breeding of Lindy Agin: http://daylily.homestead.com/agin.htm, whose seedlings are characterized by exceptional artistry of breeding achievements and unique elegance (fig.65). Fig.65 L. Agin seedlings Somewhat different morphological features of the frills can be seen in the variations of T. Petit’s breeding: http://www.petitdaylilies.com. They seem to weight more: they are thicker, wider and with lower number of undulations (fig.66), and in the extreme cases they become irregular, diffused margin, usually of different color than the color of inner areas, which in greater or lesser degree lost its characteristic of a frill (fig.67). Fig.66 Frills of variations from Petit’s breeding

Matthew William

Ted's Tribute to Linda

Wings of Smoke

Robert W. Grenkowitz

Fig.67 Irregular edges of the daylily petals

Gary Colby

Featuring the Gold

An interesting variant of edges’ endings of the inner areas, which surfaced in the recent years and is represented by a small group of variations, is the special kind of frill, and to set it apart let’s call it “wavy frill”. It has a different structure in comparison to the endings of inner areas, which were discussed above, and which in traditional way shape the idea of the term “frill”. It is characterized by disheveled, disordered number of undulations, with an extended wave of wrinkles, which on one hand create the impression of artistic disorder, and on the other hand, the impression of attractive and accurate artistic and aesthetic solution (fig.68).   Fig. 68 Daylily variations with wavy frill (1)

V. G. Star Bright (a)

Talladaega (b)

Jane Mahan (c)

Zsa Zsa (d)

It occurs in color of the petals (a), as well as in other hues (b,c,d). Kind of novum that is worth noting is the special pattern (in some of these variations) of petals that overlay each other in a tiling manner. It can be seen in some variations, such as: Talladaega (a), Jane Mahan (b) and Petit’s ZsaZsa seedling (c). In this pattern, each of inner petals is laying with one edge under and with the other edge above the adjacent petal. “Wavy” frills with larger number of more intense undulations occur in many other variations, usually the unicolor ones (fig. 69). Fig. 69 Variations of daylilies with wavy frill (2)

Cinderella Sue

Siewka Behrens'a

Fabulous Fortune

Memories Remain

The particular, more complex form of wavy frills is an extremely sophisticated pattern that looks like a jabot - decoration made out of the draperied material (fig.70) Fig.70 Variations of daylilies with wavy frill (3)

The Hul

Our Fiend Olin

Sp. Irish Illumination

Ledgewood's Wigins of a Dove

The examples of such solutions are presented in fig. 70, and the most important example is The Hulk, because it reflects the characteristic of this feature in the clearest way. Considerations over the subject of the morphological aspect of the inner petals’ endings would be incomplete if we were to omit the solutions that fail to match the term “frill”, and which in fact represent new and really promising achievements in the daylily breeding of the recent years. Endings of the petals’ edges in some of the modern daylily variations lost the look of wrinkles or undulations of outer edge of petals. The morphologically diverse structures took their place, and adopted the character more of a fringe – independent addition to the petal, instead of fragment that is integrally bound with it. It seems that the beginning of this direction of daylily breeding derived from the variation introduced by F.Harding’a - Forestlake Ragamuffin (fig.71), which for the reason of appearance of this unusual feature has become the subject of particular interest of the breeders. This direction of breeding has resulted in recent years in the introduction of many new, attractive variations, which reached the highest prices on the auctions.   Fig.71  Forestlake Ragamuffin (F.Harding 1993) In the structure of many of them, you could easily find genetic relations to the Forestlake Ragamuffin variation, regardless of whether it was formally confirmed in the lineage of the registered variations, as it was in the case of Bass Gibson (J.Rice) or F.Briar Path (F.Harding) variations, or whether it wasn’t formally confirmed in the lineage, as it was in the case of Fantastic Fringe variation (J.Salter) (fig. 72). Fig.72 Bass Gibson F.Briar Path Fantastic Fringe Innovative and unconventional endings of the petals’ edges, initially limited only to yellow and orange variations were soon transferred to variations of different colors (fig.73). They soon gained in the aspect of value as the carriers of genetic feature that potentially enables the acquisition of new, attractive solutions in the creative breeding of daylilies, and as such they gained accordingly high prices on the market. Fig.73

God Save The Queen

Brantlee Phillips

The breeding trend that assumed other endings of petals’ edges (other than traditional frill) has launched many initiatives of the greatest breeders in this direction, and even though the work is still in progress, it has already resulted in many spectacular successes. There are breeders who devoted particularly much attention to that direction and whose achievements seem to be leading in this field. They include, among others: J.Gossard  http://www.daylilynet.com/index.htm , who is the author of many very original solutions in the field of variations that are already registered (fig.74), or in the achieved seedlings (fig.75) Fig. 74 Gossard’s variations

Outer Limits

Puffrefish Heavenly

Danger Zone

Predator

Venus Fly Trap

They form in fact, unprecedented quality in the field of endings of daylily inner petals’ edges. Fig.75  J.Gossard’s seedlings Another breeder who managed to widely succeed in achieving of unconventional endings of petals is J.Benz  http://benzgardens.com/. A large number of his variations present the highest level of breeding achievements in this field (fig.76). Fig.76  J.Benz’s variations

Reap the Whirlwind

Brislting Fury

Horns

Bladerunner

Breeding works regarding obtaining morphologically attractive endings of petals are also conducted (besides the above mentioned) by many other accredited breeders.  Fig.77 shows the results of works, which goal is to obtain endings of inner petals, referred to as “shark teeth”. Fig.77 Petals’ endings defined as “shark teeth”

Mort Morss J. Salter 2002

Iwanna Prianha J. Kinnebrew 2006

Royal Fringe T. Petit 2008

Eagles Gift T. Petit 2008

All of My Love to You J. Rice 2008

Prince Vladimir J. Peat 2009

Diamond Cutter S. Holley 2010

Forever Knight J. Peat 2010

Another issue in the matter of considerations on morphological aspects of inner sepals’ edges is the transferring of their endings to the outside areas. Similarly as in the case of colorful elements of throat or eye, the nature has allowed for such solutions. Today, we can certainly say that the morphological elements that decorate petals’ endings may as a result of breeding, become also a part of sepals (fig.78). Although today you can find many variations that can prove this truth, but from the point of view of the future breeding works, this statement seems to be very important.  Fig.78 Transfer of the feature from the endings of petals’ edges to sepals 

Worthy of Distinction

Siewka Townsenda

Pins and Needles

H. Malcolm Brooker

Coloristic aspects of outer edges of petals have been partially discussed in subsections devoted to the throat and eye of daylily flowers. Coloristic relations of both those structures with the color of inner areas endings have been proven. For some time, it seemed that the acquisition of the eye or throat color by the outer petal edge has an alternative character. Results of the breeding works of the recent years contradict such view. There are many variations whose flowers are only equipped with throat and do not include the eye, but include frills in colors other than color of the throat (fig. 79). Fig. 79 Colors of the frills in daylily flowers that do not include the eye

Elegant Harmony

Thunderbolts Way

Ed Brown

Dan's Paradise Pink

Another argument has argued the introduction of richer color solutions to the petals outline. This direction in the daylily breeding has created a whole group of variations, which flowers are decorated with a frill combined from two colors. One of these colors is the eye color and the other, usually contrasting, outline of the colorful elements of the throat (fig. 80). Fig. 80 Two-color frills in flowers of daylily variations

Adventures with Ra

Led. Fondest Wish

Concert Music

Siewka Petit

Cave Creek Canyon

Mountain Wildflower

Orange Grove

Lady Betty Fretz

Keep On Lookin

Siewka Reily

Mike Thompson

Spanish Fiesta

Daylily variations enriched with the feature regarding petals outline by two-color frill belonging to the group of plants representing the highest standards of modern breeding of this flowers in the typical form.