It turns out that China’s “mother flower” is not the carnation, but this!

Welcome to Northern Plants. Today I’m going to introduce you to: Hemerocallis sp.

The large-flowered daylily is not a species, but a horticultural hybrid of some plants in the genus Hemerocallis . The species Hemerocallis fulva mentioned in botany is just one of the hybrid parents of the large-flowered daylily. In the past, the genus Hemerocallis was classified as a lily. In the current new classification system, the genus Hemerocallis is separated from lilies and belongs to the family Afusaceae.

The reason why our predecessors classified daylilies and lilies into the same family is not because of their lack of knowledge, but because daylilies and lilies look so similar.

Image taken from video

Both daylilies and lilies have 6 tepals, divided into two whorls. Please note that these are called tepals, not petals. From an anatomical point of view, the 3 in the inner whorl are the real petals, and the 3 in the outer whorl are actually sepals .

Image taken from video

Image taken from video

Each lily flower can bloom for many days, but each daylily flower generally only lives for one day. It blooms in the morning and wilts in the evening . However, daylilies have a large number of flowers. Today's flowers wither, and new ones will bloom tomorrow. The total flowering period can last for several months. It has been a popular ornamental plant since ancient times.

Image taken from video

There is a line in the Book of Songs: "Where can I get the xuān grass? It refers to the back of the tree." Later generations explained that "xuān" is the same as "xuan", and "back" is the north hall in the courtyard. It literally means that there are xuān grasses planted at the entrance of the north hall. Who lives in the north hall? It is the housewife in the family, that is, the mother of the children. So later "xuan tang" was gradually used to refer to the mother. Now we respectfully address other people's mothers as "ling tang", which comes from here.

However, the plants planted by the ancients at the entrance of their mother's house were not necessarily real daylilies. They may also include daylilies (Hemerocallis citrina), or northern daylilies, small daylilies, which are all plants of the genus Hemerocallis. The Ming Dynasty's "Flower Shu" said that "Daylilies can make you forget your worries, and their flowers are edible. There is also a small and pure yellow one, called Jinxuan, which is very fragrant and edible." This "Jinxuan" should be the daylily.

The daylilies we see in the market are usually dried flower buds. The flowering habits of daylilies are similar to those of daylilies, and each flower blooms for only one day. They must be picked in the morning and then immediately sent to steam, dry, and process to remove the toxins inside. Otherwise, it is easy to vomit and have diarrhea after eating . Many varieties of large-flowered daylilies have much higher toxin content than daylilies, so they are naturally even more inedible.

It is worth mentioning that for a long time, people have believed that the main component of the toxin contained in daylilies is colchicine. However, recently some researchers have put forward a different view, believing that there is no colchicine in daylilies, and the poisoning symptoms caused by eating daylilies are caused by other substances that have not yet been discovered. Whether this view is correct or not requires further research and discussion in the academic community. For ordinary people like us, we only need to remember: large-flowered daylilies cannot be eaten, and daylilies should be eaten with caution , and there will be basically no problem.

Author: Wu Changyu

Review | Wang Kang, Director of the Science Museum of the National Botanical Garden

The video is produced by Science Popularization China-Creation Cultivation Program

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