The orange daylily is a vigorous, clump-forming perennial. Its native range is Asia, including China and Japan, but it has naturalized in Europe and North America. The orange daylily is widely grown as an ornamental plant for its showy flowers.
The orange daylily is not a lily. Daylilies have the genus name Hemerocallis, not Lilium, the genus name of the true lilies. And daylilies do not grow from bulbs like true lilies. Instead, they do grow from a mass of thickened roots that hold so much moisture and nutrients. The plants can survive out of the ground for weeks.
The genus name of daylilies comes from the Greek words ‘hemera’ for ‘day’ and ‘kallos’ for ‘beauty. This refers to the fact that each flower lasts just one day. The species epithet ‘fulva’ refers to the flower’s reddish-yellow or tawny amber color.
Today’s photo shows the center of an orange day-lily flower. At the bottom you see the short tube. Emerging from it are 6 stamens and a single style