The Helpful Gardener
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Ever the scientific mind, Opa... :wink:

Scott

opabinia51
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Well, it's interesting because even within the scientific community there is a movement of most people who, when they discover a new species or subspecies to name it after a friend, colleage or themselves. But, really when you think about it, what good does that do for anyone? If I call an organism Strongylocentrous purpurea I can immediately pick out the greek roots to see that the organism will most likely have a radial symmetrical body plan (as apposed to bilaterally symmetrical like humans) and that it is most likely purple... and with a greek-english or Webster's dictionary you could glean other information from the name.
I forget the genus name of this organisms but the species name is clarkii. Now, obviously the namer of this organism has named it after someone with the name clark.... great... I'm sure that Mr. or Mrs. Clark was very happy about that. But, for the biologist or layperson in the field who has to remember the name of nine million three hundred twenty two thoussand other organisms and differentiate between them.... a morphological name would be much more useful.

A little rant.
Last edited by opabinia51 on Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Helpful Gardener
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Ranting is not necessarily encouraged, but neither is it discouraged (lord knows I've hopped off on a few rants here myself...)

opabinia51
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Mulch comes to mind...... :wink:

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DON'T get me started... :x

but indeed, you are correct... :shock:

Scott

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Yes on the topic of that horrible wood mulch that everyone uses... even at the Horticultural Center where I volunteer as the weekend Librarian they use the stuff. I was really sad to see that they had a huge pile of it there this past weekend. :roll: Oh well, I guess there is nothing we can do but pass on the good word of mulching leaves, grass clippings, seaweed and the like. And by the way, for those people who are reading this thread:

If you make a nice mulch from the above listed ingredients... it does keep the weeds down quite nicely and it enriches the soil making your plants grow better, bloom more often, have more vibrant blooms, the edibles will tast better and less refuse will end up in our land fills. It's a win win situation for plants, people and the environment.

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And there is good wood mulches; aged pinebark, softwood blends, etc. but it's more expensive so people buy the cheaper stuff AND IT'S BAAAADDD!!

TOLD you not to get me started, Opa... :evil:
Last edited by The Helpful Gardener on Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

opabinia51
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Well, like I said; it's best to spread the word here about good mulches.

Better to talk about good stuff to use rather than about how bad one product is... leaving no alternative to the bad stuff.

Incidentally, the leaf, coffee grind, etc way of mulching is free. Doesn't cost you a penny and if you make your own soil through composting.... you have a nice cover to put over the mulch that looks really nice.

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Nobody can get off thread like you and me, Op...

opabinia51
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Hybridizing with Daylilies: For those who wish to embark on a botanical journey with Daylilies: Here is how to start out in Hyrbrizing.

It's really quite simple (or can be quite complex) you just remove the anthers from a flower that you want to cross with another and touch the stigma of the other flower.


Once the seed forms, leave it on the plant for several weeks (there is a given time period but, my notes are not in front of me. I'll put that in at a later date.)

After collecting the seeds you can plant them and grow new plants up with combinations of the traits of the two other plants.


A note on genetics. Do not think that if you cross a yellow Daylily with an orange Daylily that you will get seeds that are 100% yellow and orange. It doesn't work that way. You may get 25%-75% of the seeds being only yellow or only orange. Or you may have seeds that are combination of the traits. It's somewhat complicated so I won't say why. Suffice to say, be aware.

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ANd remeber, we want to name one Helpful Gardener... :lol:

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Interestingly enough, the American Hemerocallis Society does not allow greek or latin to be in the names of new cultivars though, I am still of the school of thought that one should name an organism based on it's morphology. Still, just because greek and latin are used to name genera and species, I think it rather ludicrous to disallow it's use for common names.
You have to admit that pseudopod sounds a heck of a lot better than false foot.

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Opa look at the pretty names that people put on their daylilies; now why would you want to name one 'False Foot'? :wink:

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No, no, no. I wouldn't call a Daylily pseudopoda unless it actually had a structure that resembled or performed the structure of a foot. But, no plant has such a structure.... the example is from Gastropods.... ah yes, more greek. Stomach Foots.... geez, that doesn't sound that great in english does it? Snails.
I was just using pseudopod as an example. I mean Hemerocallis etymologized would not sound that great. I don't have my greek dictionary with me but, trust me when you use morphology as a name base, languages that most people don't speak sound a lot better.

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Point well taken...

When folks are naming daylilies, they aren't creating new genera or species; it's either H. middendorfii '_______' or H. lilio-asphodelus '_____', or most likely Hemerocallis X '_____', but as soon as we fil in the blank, we need to use some other language to namr it or we begin to confuse the Linnaen nomenclature. It's not a sub-species, it's a cultivar. At least that's why I think they made that rule (makes sense to me, but so does dwarfing trees and keeping them in little pots and most folks think that's CRAZY!). :lol:

Scott

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Yes, I know that they are not creating new species what they are actually doing is mixing up the genes through the process of recombination. And I actually think that it is great to be doing that because if vegetative reproduction (creating clones) is the only way that plants are reproduced you can get into some real trouble if a disease of some sort comes along as there will not be any resistance in a population to combat that disease.
So, from a survival point of view, it is actually really good for the genus Hemerocallis to have people breeding them. The whole colchicine thing doesn't do much for the genus but, I think all breeding that is not inbreeding is good breeding. :)

opabinia51
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Here is something that I learned while researching for an article on Daylilies:

Did you know that Daylilies were first cultivated by the Chinese around 504 BC and they were not used for visual pleasure but rather for medicine and food crops?

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Deep fried daylily buds are tasty, and I 've munched em raw; some are better than others...

Opa, that cross breeding thing is great to a point but with our natives the crossing being done by man sometimes creates a plant that no longer holds the wildlife values that it once did. Should those genes become a larger part of the pool (as they are in most cases) then the wildlife may lose an integral part of it's food bank or habitat, to what loss we can only conjecture. So while the inter-breeding may be to the benefit of the particular genus and species, it may be detrimental to the biosphere at large...

Devil's Advocate

opabinia51
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Yes while obviously when crossbreading, with the intent of perpetuating a species survival it is only beneficial to species of a given area from the standpoint of human bystanders if the breading is done with "like" species from that environment.
But, let us not forget the founder effect of the introduction of an individuals or many "like" individuals genetic material to a new population and how this has led to disease resistance and so on.
Of course this brings me back to the discussion that we had in your poll on invasives. It is definately not beneficial from an Ecological perspective to breed a plant from North America with one from Asia. However, in the case of Daylilies, the genus Hemerocallis originated in Asia and not North America so, it is not native to here and is what one might call a novelty plant.
But, many species of Apple are native to North America and if the species is constantly inbred and cloned, it looses genetic diversity that is much needed for the species survival. I am sure that long after humans have gone the way of the dinosaur, that many plants will still be around and from my perspective it is best to give such plants a fighting chance. Not to mention a fighting chance to deal with all the environmental problems that we have and are causing.
Oh yes, and the daylily that I bought last May was really nice to simply pick off the Scape and eat. Really tasty and somewhat akin to eating a leaf of lettuce. Anyway, off to make some Jumbalaya.

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All good points Opa, but my mind drifted when you said jambalaya...

Mmmmm...tasso...

Mmmmm...andouille...

8)

Scott

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Mmmmm Jumbalaya!! Now that it is the season again, I might try throwing some of my daylily flowers into the Jumbalaya pot! Oh, I bet that would taste great!

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Saw some beautiful spider varieties of Daylily at the Horticultural Center of the Pacific (on Quayle Road) this past weekend. Just spectacular.


My Daylilies are up and doing well. Though, the cultivars that I planted last year seem to be the fall blooming variety just because the only one that is actually blooming is the same one that I was talking about last year. Still love it though.

And I'm still looking for Starman's Quest.

One cool thing is that I met a lady at the Organics fair who came by our booth and she grows Daylilies as well. We exchanged emails such that we are able to exchange cultivars in the not to distant future. Should be fun! :)

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I thought in plants triploid was better than diploid and so on. I know that most strawberries grown are octoploid and are disease resistent and don't die from frost and so on.

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Ploidy doesn't directly infer resistance and cold hardiness or what have you. It's actually a lot more complicated that that though, endosperm in plant seeds is generally triploid to add more nturients to the mix.

Anyway, this is a very complex topic and whole theses have been written on it.



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