Friday, July 26, 2013

A Hemerocallis year!

     Did the title arouse your interest? Most people will not recognize this proper name. Many people will not even know that the name refers to a plant. And certainly the vast majority of my readers will not recognize this name as the species name of a very common and recognizable perennial flower.
Hemerocallis is the species name for daylily. This name derives from the Greek words: hemera which means day and kalos which means beautiful.

   Daylilies are native to Eurasia and now are seen throughout the world. In the United States they are a backbone flower in the perennial border. They will grow and prosper in any well drained soil in an area with full sun to light shade. They are resistant to most pests and diseases and even can survive some drought when well established. They come in every color except true blue. Each flower lasts only a day -- hence their common name, but the bracket of buds provide flowers over a 2 to 4 weeks period of time. Different varieties bloom at different times starting in July (in Wisconsin), so that a combination of varieties in the border will provide bloom for the entire rest of the summer. The complexity of the blooms varies from small single petaled flowers to double and even triple flowers, as well as spidery blooms to frilly ruffled complex blooms with petals edged in different colors.

      The following website has a wonderful listing of variety names with photos. There are indeed over 60,000 named and licensed cultivars of  the 18 named species. Check out the website. You can see from this encyclopedic photo gallery that there is a daylily cultivar that would fit almost any garden need, no matter the color, size of bloom, height of plant or soil and climate requirements
  
 http://www.ofts.com/photo/dl_view.html

     In my garden, last year was the year of the iris. And this year seems to be the year of the daylily. All my groupings are topped with profuse bloom, indeed more blossoms than I have ever seen. I tried to recall if I had remembered to scatter some timed release fertilizer pellets among the daylilies last year. Is that why they are so beautiful this year. But then one of my water aerobic class friends noted that her daylilies were going wild this year as well. so there was something about the climate and weather that has led to this. I read that if you cut off the dead blossoms and don't let seed pods form, you might get more flowers the next year. So I wonder if the drought we had last year interfered with seed production prompting a more profuse flowering this year. Just a theory!

     I commented about the lack of pests that affect daylilies but there is one pest that can be very destructive. That is the whitetailed deer. Deer eat the very young tender plants as they are emerging in the spring. Aside from the temporary raggety appearance that this produces it does not significantly affect the years growth or flowering. Once the growth becomes firmer, the deer are no longer interested in a snack. But then when the flower buds are enlarging there comes another deer risk. Sometimes I think the deer are walking by every night checking out the size of the buds. And just as the largest one is about to open up, the daylily grower can come outside of a morning and the tops have all been nibbled off ending that seasons of flowers. Therefore, I have learned exactly when to use my deer repellent spray du jour. I spray the enlarging buds once a week for 2 to 3 weeks and the deer seem to get the idea. You have to remember that deer are creatures of habit. If you can break that habit of the walk by of your daylily beds, you can protect them and a few interrupted sprays will usually do this.


A prolific stand of Hemerocallis fulva, the Tawny Daylily

A single Tawny Daylily bloom.
      In the 17th century, the first English colonists to North America brought the Tawny Daylily, species Hemerocallis fulva to American gardens. These daylilies escaped from gardens and are now seen growing along roadsides and in many sunny areas. This characteristic has resulted in a plethora of common names for the perennial -- such as roadside lily, ditch lily, railroad lily, washhouse lily and outhouse lily. These hardy spreading types were often planted to mask the outhouse, hence this name.  It has also been called Tiger Lily but it is not a lily at all, but an entirely unrelated family of plants. This species is so prevalent that many people think it is a native North American wildflower, but that is not the case. This fulvous daylily is stoloniferous. This means it grows by underground runner. These original daylilies are therefore very invasive and can take over a garden from other desirable perennials. Due to its invasiveness, one probably should not plant these species daylily but they are often the ones that are shared among friends when it is time to divide the clump.
     I have several stands of Tawny Daylily, because I found an old bed near the ranch house we tore down and replaced with our new house on Lake Michigan. Therefore I divided these clumps and populated my new empty beds with them around my house. In my growing conditions they have been only slightly invasive.

A cultivar of Hemerocallis fulva, not quite as invasive.
      Another of the early imported stoloniferous species daylily is Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, or an old name, Hemerocallis flava. This species has also escaped into the wild. It is often called the Lemon Lily because it is scented like lemon. The blossom is light yellow and often stands of this species are seen in natural areas. It is not quite as invasive as H. fulva.


Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, or Lemon Lily.

          The ease of growth and hybridization of daylilies has led to several daylily societies both in North America and elsewhere in the world. England was early responsible for hybridization success. Most hybridization has been done in the last 100 years. H. fulva is a diploid plant. That means that it has two copies of its DNA. But hybrids often have triploid and even tetraploid DNA. That means they have three or 4 copies of each chromosome. This makes hybridization easier. As I mentioned there are about 60,000 registered cultivars of Hemerocallis but there are probably just as many that have been developed but not registered. I discovered that if you go to any of the online purchase websites there are often lots of daylily roots for sale which contain plants that either have lost their names or have never received a registered name. When purchasing new daylilies, it is wise to keep the plants labeled in the garden. That way if the owner ever decides to distribute his daylilies for profit or decides to either show them in competitions or in anyway hybridize them, the name tag of the cultivar is known.

I brought this red cultivar from my old home. I don't recall the name, but it
had the word Christmas in its title. Its flowers are 5 inches across.
 
          The Hemerocallis Society has defined blossom size quantitatively. The above red flowered cultivar has blossoms that would be defined as large, greater than 4 1/2 inches. Small flowered varieties have flowers between 3 and 4 1/2 inches. Much prized miniature cultivars have flowers that are less than 3 inches in diameter. I have a cultivar pictured below that has flowers that are about 3 inches in diameter. Otherwise the colors are almost identical to that large flowered variety pictured above. One can notice that the miniature flowers have more of a triangular shape. This leads us to another characteristic that is used to classify cultivars -- flower shape.
 
 
    Flower shape is determined by the number and shape of the various petals and whether they are recurved or not.   Every daylily blossom has several parts. Usually there are 3 petals and 3 sepals alternating around the central throat. Either the petals or the sepals or both can be recurved that is bending backwards. If all 6 of these flower parts are of similar size, the flower will appear round. If only the petals or only the sepals are smaller or if one set is recurved, the flower will appear triangular. The petals and sepals can be quite narrow in which case the flower is often called a spider form. Or these parts can be equally wide giving a broad flat base for the color. Often the throat is a different color than the petals and sepals. Usually the throat is of medium depth but occasionally the throat is so deep that the flower resembles an Asiatic lily.  Sometimes between the petals and sepals and the throat is another band of color giving rise to so called banded or eyed forms. Some of the more modern and expensive daylily cultivars have diamond dusting which gives a sparkly nature to the petals or sepals.


This flower is rounded and therefore has no recurving. It does have an eye of
darker rose color. And the edges of the flower are ruffled.

     It is often said that Hermerocallis lacks only two colors of blossom -- true blue and pure white. Paging through the photos of daylilies in the above website, there are colors in daylilies that approach blue. Sometimes the blue is only in the center of the blossom. But indeed there are no daylilies yet which have the blue characteristic of the chicory blossom that you see blooming along the roadsides throughout North America. This would be my definition of a "true blue." As for white, daylily blossoms of some cultivars approach white through a very very light yellow, or green, or through a very light melon or peach. I am sure that hybridizers are working on a pure white cultivar.
Here is my "white". It is really just the palest of yellows.



       The following 3 photos are of a very prolific bloomer. I don't know its name but it is a likely cultivar of H. flava. I brought this variety from our old house. The color is an orange yellow with a same color throat. A drawback is that the color tends to fade even during the one day that it is open.


Here you can see the fading and likewise below.


 
    
Here the petals and sepals are equal and rather narrow. This gives the flower
a spider-like form.
      Daylily flowers can be single like most shown on this page, or they can be double as shown here, or even triple. In some cases only the petals or only the sepals are doubled, and then the flower is called polymorphous.

A partially double cultivar of H. fulva.


A unnamed cultivar which I brought from my old house. The sepals are
fairly plain, while the petals have more rose color and a central rib of yellow.

 
     Well, you now know more than you ever wanted to know about daylilies. Add just a few nuances and you could apply to be a master member of the American Hemerocallis Society. Better yet, just plant a few daylilies and enjoy their remarkable ability to proliferate quickly and brighten the entire perennial border. 
 
My stand of H. fulva with Lake Michigan in the background.

 

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Scrabbling Over Scrabble

     Click on the following link to read about some new news in Scrabble playing. See my post of April 17, 2013.
  
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/opinion/sunday/scrabbling-over-scrabble.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    When I first saw this article I thought someone had stolen my idea. See my post of April 17, 2013. But this is some new news. The National Scrabble Association which has at least partially been supported by Hasbro, the toy company which currently manufactures Scrabble, the Board Game, is closing its doors.  Slowly over the years this article says, Hasbro has been withdrawing financial support. Finally as of July 1, the company has withdrawn all support and the Association has closed. This withdraws financial support for many of the competitive venues of the game.
     This occurs at a time when Scrabble is never more popular, and the competitive side of the game is at its broadest. Fatsis' article says that "more than a million people, from kids to hipsters to nonagenarians play daily on Facebook. In May, nearly 200 students in fourth through eighth grades competed in the National School Scrabble Championship. On Saturday, more than 500 die-hards,, the author included, gathered in Las Vegas for the National Scrabble Championship, a five-day 31-gme anagrammatic marathon."
      Indeed, Hasbro has spent millions of dollars in the last 25 years financing the NSA, organizing national, world, and school tournaments, booking the winners of some of these on late night TV spots, maintained a database of competitive players, published a newsletter, put the game on ESPN for 6 years, published a Scrabble dictionary and has kept it up to date with modern words that have become acceptable Scrabble words. Now Hasbro follows in the steps of its predecessor in Scrabble, Selchow and Richter who made Scrabble from its inception in 1948 until Hasbro purchased North American rights in 1989. In 1985, a marketing executive from Selchow and Richter said, " You have to understand, we are in the game-making business. We are not in the altruism business." Now Hasbro follows in these footsteps.
     I had no idea that the competitive arm of Scrabble play was so widespread and so active. I know that tournaments are very closely monitored. Tournament play is the real game of Scrabble, where players are not allowed to use aids, 2 word dictionaries, and other modern electronic gizmos. Also each play is timed and each player has only 25 minutes to complete all of his plays. This means that competitive players have to have at their disposal "178,000, 2 to 15 letter words" and they exercise their "spatial relations, board geometry and language maximization" skills repeatedly through several days of tournaments.
     Somehow the players and their associations will continue to support these venues. Competitive players have now formed their own independent North American Scrabble Players Association which is supported by higher dues and various forms of fundraising. This new organization will provide the $10.000 prize money for the national tournament in Vegas, replacing the $15,000 that Hasbro has withdrawn.  These tournaments will go on, but this article expresses the disappointment that industry can not find the wherewithal to provide support for such an honorable purpose.
     The author of this article in the New York Times, Stefan Fatsis, is a competitive scrabble player himself. He has written several books on Scrabble. The most recent is entitled: Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players.

 

Sunday, July 14, 2013

The Whip poor will and Tarrytown, NY.

The Whip Poor Will -- A Rare Bird!

     A couple weeks ago I was out in my Wild Area (my husband calls it my jungle) where I have a lot of prairie plantings, and I heard the call of a Whip Poor Will. I have only heard this bird call twice before. The first time was during an at dusk neighborhood walk in our old Applewood neighborhood. The second time was shortly after we moved to our new neighborhood in Mequon. I was again taking a walk and heard this bird call. This third time the call was coming from about 3 lots north of us, perhaps even from Virmond Park. All three times have been during migration. Click on the link below to hear the Whip poor will's call.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTATW8H8zpQ

     The Whip-poor-will is a member of our North American nightjar family (named after the nightjarring call after dark) as is the common night hawk, the paurauque of southern Texas,  the Chuck-will's-widow of Southeastern US, and the poorwill of Western canyons. These birds are all members of a genus of birds known as the Goatsuckers. They get this name because it was thought they would suck the milk of a female goat at night to nourish themselves. They were certainly seen around herds of goats and other animals at dusk, but only because they were chasing the insects around these animals.

      The night hawk is much more commonly seen as it flies in the sky in the late day and during dusk and gives its peent call. I recall studying for finals at my desk at the window in the northeastern corner of Currier Residence Hall at the University of Iowa in June and hearing that peent as the nighthawks take off in their nightly search for insects just as the street lights come on. They basically just fly with wide open mouths and scoop up the bugs in their swarms.  White wing bars which run across the wing identify the night hawk easily in its flight and also during its brief migration in late summer.  The migration of nighthawks can be an impressive event if you know when and where to look. These birds migrate in late summer, usually between August 10 and September 15th. But the majority will fly around August 26th or within 2 days either side of this date. A few may fly south during the day, but the vast majority do so within 2 hours of the sunset. Find an open field or open space, even such as Millennium Park in Chicago and scan the sky on those few nights. You might be lucky to witness the silent show that is going on overhead above tree level. These flights will detour and flutter around to catch insects in the swarms that they run into on this migration. This stuttered and fluttering flight led people to think these birds were bats, hence another common name, the bull bats.

    The whip-poor-will is much harder to see. It also is a nocturnal bird, but mostly flies from a perch only at dusk and at pre-dawn to catch insects with its wide jawed cavernous mouth. During the day and some of the night it simply perches on a branch or on the ground where its colorings make it next to invisible. When breeding it makes a nest among the leaves of the forest and will sit still on the nest, invisible, almost until stepped upon. But in contrast, its call is very noticeable and carries for long distances. It may repeat the call in rapid succession for an hour or more at dusk and at dawn.

     The Whip-poor-will nests on the ground, usually lays 2 eggs only and both parents help to raise the hatch lings. Because the bird is so hard to see and watch, not as much is known about its behavior as other more visible birds.

     This Whip-poor-will species has recently been divided into two separate species. The one I heard is now called the Eastern Whip-poor-will. The range for this bird is throughout southern and eastern Canada and much of the eastern United States. It winters in southern Florida and across the US Gulf Coast. It is rare locally throughout its range, but is not really threatened because of its vast range. I think the birds that I have heard on all three occasions were probably in migration only. I do not think they nest around southeastern Wisconsin or even northern Illinois. The second species' range is in southern California and northwestern Mexico. It has been separated from the Eastern species for so long that it has developed different markings and its call is a little different. These are the reasons that it was decided to name them a separate species. Even their DNA varies a little. That bird is called the Mexican Whip-poor-will.

     Here is a photo of the bird. I did not take this photo and I have never seen the bird myself, only hearing it on those three occasions.

                                                           The Eastern Whip-poor-will

     Early American Indian legends have often associated the haunting repetitive call with death. One New England folk legend says that the whip-poor-will can sense a soul departing and can also capture it as it flies. It is quite interesting that I heard this bird calling the night before I went to attend a funeral for the first member of our high school class to die in maturity. Of course, this is just a coincidence but it would be quite easy to attach a significance to this event as our ancestors often did.

    Because that call for which the bird is named is so notable, the bird's name or its call has appeared in many literary works and in many songs over the centuries. H.P. Lovecraft used the soul capturing idea as a plot device in his story,  The Dunwich Horror. Howard Phillips Lovecraft lived between 1890 and 1937 and wrote initially poetry, and later horror, fantasy and science fiction. He is especially known for a subgenre of writing called weird fiction. He said he was guided by a philosophical principle that he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror" which he said is the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and indeed that the universe is basically an enemy to the interests of humanity. He conceived of a story cycle called the Cthulhu Mythos and invented a fictional magical textbook of rites and forbidden lore, called the Necrononmicon, which appears in the story The Dunwich Horror along with many whip poor wills.  Many of his stories were in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe, but perhaps even more horrific, if The Dunwich Horror is any indication. Stephen King was a great fan of Lovecraft and no doubt Lovecraft had a great influence on this well known and prolific writer. Mr. King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale"  In King's autobiographical book "Danse Macabre" he credited Lovecraft with his own fascination with the macabre . Lovecraft's stories have been made into plays, films and games. The Dunwich Horror was made into a B-movie in 1970. The story was altered significantly but it is based on a similar idea. It was actor Ed Begley's last role where he played Professor Henry Armitage, of the fictional Arkham, MA Miskatonic University. These places enter into several of Lovecraft's writing. The leading role of Wilbur Whateley was offered to Peter Fonda who turned it down. Dean Stockwell finally played the role of Wilbur Whateley. The film was shot in Mendocino, California.

     Below is an online copy of this short story written in 1928 .  Note that several recurring themes of Lovecraft's appear in this story. He frequently used the fictional town of Arkham, Massacusetts and this town's fictional Miskatonic Universtiy. Also Lovecraft's fictional magical text, the Necronomicon appears and plays a large role in the story. One of his invented deities, Cthulhu is sited. You might be interested in reading this story.

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/dh.aspx

    Perhaps the most famous reference to the  whip poor will is in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In Irving's description of the local school teacher, Ichabod Crane, and the general haunting nature of the locale, which led to that horrible legend of the Hessian headless horseman of all of our memories, the whip poor will is mentioned along with other strange night sounds and visions.
     "He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination, -- the moan of the whip poor will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, 'in linked sweetness long drawn out,' floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road."

     If this brief paragraph strikes your memories from the distant past, since I am sure this story was required reading for many of you way back in high school, or perhaps even grade school -- then here is a link to the entire story.

http://www.bartleby.com/310/2/2.html

  Or if you would rather arouse another memory from your childhood, here is the link to the Disney short cartoon feature of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Much of the story here is read by Bing Crosby, and their are songs as well, along with the animated views. It's really cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxX66vLSZoQ

Tarrytown in 1928, looking south toward Manhattan.
     As depicted in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the area of Tarrytown, NY and the small village which the modern city engulfed, Sleepy Hollow, are very historic and scenic places. We had the pleasant occasion just in May this year to attend my niece's wedding held at Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown, NY. If you read the first paragraph of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, you heard this area referenced. The Dutch people who settled this area grew wheat. Tarrytown was their market town and was called Terve Town (Terve, meaning wheat in Dutch). Apparently the name was corrupted to Tarrytown. However, Washington Irving has a different explanation of the city name. It was thought that Tarrytown received its name because the husbands of the local Dutch folk, often tarried too long at the local tavern. And nearby is the small village still known as Sleepy Hollow. It is a very nice area to visit, but you do have to plan ahead. At the turn of the century and into the early 1900s, Tarrytown became known as "The Millionaire's Colony." At that time, there were 65 huge and opulent mansions in this area, many of them overlooking the Hudson River. There are visits that can be made to several of these local mansions along the Hudson River, that once belonged to the local blue bloods. And since many of these mansions have become financially and otherwise burdensome for the descendant owners of these properties, several have become resorts, hotels and wedding venues. Such is Tappan Hill Mansion where the wedding was held. It once belonged to Mark Twain who lived here from 1900 to 1902.

The Hudson River from Tappan Hill Mansion.

 
View directly from the Wedding Room.
Since there are no rooms at Tappan Hill, we stayed at Tarrytown Estate Hotel,
originally another of these opulent mansions in the area.
Where the wedding would take place(it was raining.)

 
The wedded couple leaves the reception at Tappan Hill Mansion.
   
      The rehearsal dinner was held in downtown Yonkers, at X2O Xaviars on the Hudaon, down the Hudson River about 12 miles from Tarrytown. From this venue, you can see the Tappan Zee Bridge to the north and the George Washington Bridge to the south, along with the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

George Washington Bridge and Manhattan to the left, Fort Lee, NJ to the right.



Just to the left of bridge tower, note Freedom Tower in lower Manhattan.
Tappan Zee Bridge, Tarrytown, NY

 In Tarrytown, if you intend to visit some of these historic mansions, you will need to buy a single ticket sold at several places in the city. Often these need to be purchased or reserved in advance. The timing of the visits to the different sites require this. Therefore, you can not just show up and expect to get tickets to all the places you want to see. The various sites include Kykuit, Rockefeller's mansion in Tarrytown, built in 1902; Lyndhurst Mansion which belonged to Jay Gould the railroad magnate; Sunnyside which was a home and property created and owned by Washingtion Irving himself; and the Sleepy Hollow area which has a restored mill and river walk, a museum demonstrating the history of the area, and finally the Cemetery of Sleepy Hollow. Otherwise places that are described in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow do not exist. Still you can certainly get the flavor of this story by visiting the area and seeing some of these sites.

Sunnyside, Washington Irving's estate in Tarrytown, NY.
Kykuit, the Rockefeller mansion built in 1902.
Lyndhurst Mansion, site of a neat Halloween lighted tour


     .
     May I make one more related suggestion, should you decide to travel to this historic area. Go at Halloween time. In early and mid October, the leaves will be at peak along the Hudson. And the area of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow hold all sorts of wonderful haunted tours and light shows. There is a lantern light tour of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Many of these special tours start well before Halloween. We were there in May but were I ever to go back, I would go at Halloween time -- Yes, I would!  Woooo!