Jen, Hi! What are you looking in return? I'm interested but I don't have much now but please take a look at my trade list and LMK. Thanks.

Free plants in Montgomery, AL - must dig and take all We have about 20 plants of the species daylily known as h. fulva Kwanso which has a triploid flower. 'Kwanso' cannot set seed; reproduced by underground runners and division of the clump. This old variety was naturalized in North America and Europe many years ago, and spreads aggressively. Scapes grow 30-40 inches tall from the plant base. Reply to tigerlylily5555@hotmail.com

I just dug the clump. Part of the mystery is solved as the tag from the seller is wraped around the fan of Kwanso. So I recieved it from the seller. That means its been in my garden from the fall of 2008. The clump had two fans when I got it, either it didn't bloom at all or the correct one bloomed in 2009, not sure which. Then this spring I moved the three fan clump over to were I made a new row of late bloomers. So my timing was very good. I see one long root with a fan growing on top that would have popped up at least a foot away. As the roots are all attached and there is nothing else, I know I got it out. However, I am leary of the other two fans possibly not being what they are supossed to be. I think they are correct as the roots look different. Like regular daylily roots instead of these long things like on the other fan. Also the bloom scapes are not anywhere near ready which would go with the fact that the real one is a very late bloomer. Haven't decided if I will just replant or pot them up. Kwanso goes out in the garbage, already in the garbage bag.

Arlow Stout did a great deal of pioneering work on daylilies and especially doubles. He found that both Kwanzo and flore pleno are triploids. All doubles are variable in form; the amount of doubling seems to depend on temperature but may actually be affected by many climatic factors. There are several different types of doubling and many genes that can produce doubling. One type turns the female part of the flower (the pistil) into petals or petal-like structures, a different type of double turns the male part of the flower (the stamen) into petal or petal-like structures (petaloids), and there are other types. When the stamen is turned into a petaloid the amount of petal tissue varies from a wing on one side to a complete petal with no pollen visible. Intermediate forms are the most common. In my cool climate most doubles do not ever double at all. Some produce a few flowers with one or two extra petals. In Florida the same plant will be double 100% of the time. Both flore pleno and Kwanzo were used as parents in the early days of hybridizing but most of the double daylilies produced were of the stamen-transforming type. More recently doubles have been produced that still have all their sexual parts. In crossing triploid daylilies with either diploid or tetraploid daylilies the sequence of events is that the cross will appear successful, the flower will wither and drop and a seed pod will start to develop. After a period of time that can be short or long most of the pods will abort. But a few pods may survive long enough to produce some apparently healthy, black seeds as well as empty seedcoats. Most of those seeds will not germinate. A very very few of the seeds will germinate to produce a seedling. Many of those seedlings will die before reaching maturity and flowering. It is not impossible but quite infrequent that a successful mature plant would be produced. (They were used successfully in the past so it is possible.) Biologically, if you use diploid or tetraploid pollen on a triploid the pollen germinates and a sperm nucleus successfully fertilizes the egg and an embryo starts to develop. Because flowering plants have double fertilization a sperm also has to fuse with the polar nuclei (two of them) to form the endosperm tissue which will nourish the embryo). That also successfully occurs. Because development starts the plant is signaled to abort the flower but to keep the developing pod. However, some of the embryos will have an incorrect and unbalanced number of chromosomes (diploids have 22 or 11 pairs, triploids have 33, tetraploids have 44 chromosomes) and will die and the pod drops. In other cases the chromosome number may be in balance or only slightly wrong (say 23 or 34 or 21 chromosomes) and the embryo is viable. But the endosperm is not viable. The endosperm tissue is usually not viable in most cases because its chromosomal make-up is more important. Thus the pod drops. The endosperm balance number (EBN) is the factor considered to be important in seed development in crosses involving triploids (or other different chromosome numbers). In trying to use Kwanzo or flore pleno I would suggest using their pollen (when it is present) on other daylilies (trying to choose as the pod parent a plant that does not set pods by insect pollinations or by itself).