Unique double-flowered day lily

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 9

Unique double-flowered day lily

GARDENER’S DIARY

By

Derrick Rooney

The double orange daylily, which is a variety of 1 Hemerviallis fulva, has been a favourite border flower for more than a century. It came from Japan, via England or Australia, in the early 1860 s, and must have become very popular, very quickly; it was prominent in the foreground of a picture I saw recently of the I garden of an early sheep station about 1869. It is unique, because it i .is, I think, the only heri haceous perennial of that ; time (other than species) j which is still in wide i circulation — and it is i the only double-flowered I dav-lily available in this ■ country. It is also, despite | its vigour and continued I popularity, a bit of a mys- ! terv plant. Every gardener nowai davs calls it “Kwanso,” j and a quick search of old I catalogues shows that it i has had this name, certainly in New Zealand, at least since the turn of the ! century; but a recent dis- ' covery in an old ChristI church garden has thrown ! doubts on its right to the

For “Kwanso,” as it was known in the mideighteenth century, had variegated leaves, and was a much smaller and less enthusiastic grower than the bombastic plant we have today; it is this variegated "Kwanso” that has been rediscovered. A bit of detective work remains to be done on the

matter, but it is fairly safe. I think, to say at this stage that under the rules of precedence a name change is in order for the big, bold plant we all know as “Kwanso." Descriptions and murky illustrations in Victorian gardening literature are not the easiest guides, but they are clear enough to make it almost certain that the plant we have

today is what was known 90 years ago as Hemerocallis disticha “Angustifolia.” “disticha” being a synonym, now invalid, for “fulva.”

Mrs Earle, a great authority of the time on everything from hardy flowers to childrearing (her thinking on the latter was rather woolly, per-

haps because like many Victorian ladies she left the actual work of bringing up the little brats to the hired hands, hut. on gardening she had a straightforward, earthy approach; 1 like her books), wrote a chapter on hardy flowers in which she spoke of "Hemerocallis disticha, the variegated H. Kwanso, the doubleflowered Angustifolia, and variegata” — all forms of H. fulva.

“Variegata,” which was mentioned by one or f. o other writers and had, apparently, single orange flowers and leaves striped with cream, seems to have disappeared into the mists of time. But “the variegated Kwanso” was rediscovered in an old Papanui garden a few years

ago. and has been distributed among a few enthusiasts. No nursery stocks it, and if any did it would be exorbitantly expensive, because it is very slow to increase. It was more than two years before I could get a tiny offset from my own clump to start a new one elsewhere in the garden. “Variegated Kwanso” likes a bit of shade, and in strong sun it sometimes burns. The leaves are a bright middle green, boldly striped with white — very handsome foliage. The" variegation is carried right up the flower stem, and even the exterior of the buds is striped with white. But when the fowers open they are a disappointment; they are double all right, but small, and a dull brownish or-

ange. The suggestion has been made, and accepted by some of the experts, that the so-called “Kwanso” is this plant reverted to the plain green form, having recovered from the virus or mutation or whatever that caused the variegation by leaching

chlorophyll from parts of the plant; but I cannot accept this. There are differences between the two in flower size and petalage. and in the shape and texture of the leaves —

differences that become abundantly clear when the two are grown side by side. The behaviour of the two in winter is different, too; plain green “Kwanso” dies down, but leaves a little green tuft just poking out of the soil all winter, whereas variegated “Kwanso” disappears completely with the first whiff of frost, and is not seen again until spring.

Graham Stuart Thomas, gardens adviser to the British National Trust, wrote in his “Perennial Garden Plants” (published only three years ago but already the standard reference for the naming of cultivated perennials) that two forms were originally imported from Japan, one with green leaves and the other with striped ones, and the striped one was the first to bear the name “Kwanso.” The other was known as “Kwanso Flore Pleno.”

Mr Thomas is pretty powerful artillery, but in this case, I think he is firing blanks. Mrs Earle was there at the time — and in my garden, the oldfashioned double orange day-lily will be known from "this day forth as “Angustifolia.”