Polytepals Aplenty

Unless they are doubles, most daylily flowers have 3 petals and 3 sepals (like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ pictured above). However, sometimes a daylily will send up a polytepal bloom. That means it will have four or more petals and sepals, plus more stamens. If a daylily has polytepal blooms more than 50% of the time, it’s described as polytepalous.

As far as I know I don’t have any polytepalous daylilies, but every summer I discover one or two polytepal blooms. Looking for them is kind of like hunting for a four-leaf clover.

This summer I’ve had more polytepal blooms than ever. In fact I recently had four on the same day.

Here’s ‘Magenta Assault’ looking a little fatter than usual:

This is ‘Cedar Waxwing’ showing off 8 petals and sepals:

Here’s a side-by-side view of a regular bloom and a polytepal bloom from ‘Ruby Spider’:

This is ‘Chosen Love’:

‘Silver Veil’ is new in my garden this year and its second bloom was a polytepal:

The prize, however, goes to ‘Savannah Fire Chief’. Normally it looks like this:

But recently it bloomed with ten petals and sepals (a little homely, but “E” for effort):