Wikijunior:Summer Flowers of Northern New England/Hemerocallis

 
 
Day Lily
(Hemerocallis)
Orange flower
Yellow flower
Description:
The Daylily produces huge yellow or orange flowers, depending on the variety. Each flower looks like it has six petals, but really, it only has three true petals. The other three are called tepals (tee-pulls). The leaves are long and slender. Daylilies belong to a large category of plant called monocots (Mah-no-kots). Monocots often have long slender leaves, and the veins in these leaves will always run in the same direction and do not branch. The flowers of most monocots almost always have either three or six petals. If a plant is not a monocot, it's a dicot (die-cot). So even if you can't tell anything else about a plant, you should be able to tell if it's a monocot or a dicot by looking at the leaf veins and counting the petals.

Quick Facts:
The Daylily is an edible plant. The Chinese use the flowers as an ingredient in hot and sour soups.

Several Daylilies in a garden