Re: pink and purple daylilies

As Claire points out, different people see different colors.  One problem
that I notice -- something I fall into myself -- is that we often tend to
refer to colors in terms of their ranges rather than specific colors.  We
say "red" in reference to the thousand different colors on the color
spectrum between true orange and true purple, when in fact there is only
one specific color red.  Someone will call a flower "red" when actually
it's burgundy, crimson, scarlet, etc.  These are all distincly different
colors (my 9th grade art teacher would have thrown her stapler at the
wall had someone referred to crimson as "red!").  That's why I often use
good old Crayola crayons as a measurement; Crayola colors are pretty
accurate according to an artist's color wheel.   So when I say I have a
number of purple daylilies, or red daylilies, or even pink daylilies and
I'm touring my gardens with any of my friends who are visual artists
they'll say, "No, you don't," because I don't, in fact, have any
daylilies that are true purple, true red, or true pink -- then I have to
say, "WELL, if you want to get PICKY..."  Often, at that point, I throw
them off by saying, "Well, it's in the purple family so I'm not as
concerned as to whether or not it's the true species..."  ;-)

As far as I know, yellow and orange are the only true colors available in
daylilies -- not surprisingly, those are the colors found in the various
pure species.  The same yellow genes that cause "reds" to look rust or
some other red-orange color are the same genes that cause "pinks" to be
more apricot or peach.  I have seen true pink daylilies at the daylily
show but I can't remember the cultivar names, all I can remember is that
fans (offsets) of the plant were priced WAY beyond my interest in owning
a true pink daylily.  ;-)  

In the end, it's marketing and finance which run the whole she-bang!

Dean Sliger
Warren, Michigan, USA
Zone 6B

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