Some wildflowers are really just garden escapees who have forged out beyond the order of human plantings to make a home for themselves amongst the native plants and other weeds. That would be the daylily. It may not be a native, or naturally wild, but it grows wild in ditches and along old habitations throughout the country.

Like a mule, Hemerocallis fulva is actually a sterile crossbreed—it is unable to produce fertile seed. It is only propagated through the roots, which makes all the orange daylilies you see in the ditch—as well as the first one recorded in the US in 1793, and the first known H. fulva in northern Europe in 1576—all clones of the original Chinese hybrid.

Do you love daylilies? Purchase artwork of some for yourself!