Amur daylily is a wild daylily from northeast Asia whose golden-yellow to orange flowers sit in a tight cluster at the top of the stalk, wrapped in broad leafy . It grows wild in the Russian Far East, northeast China, Korea, and Japan, but not in the US, where it's grown in gardens as a very cold-hardy daylily.
Appearance
- Growth form
- A clump-forming perennial with arching, strap-like leaves about 14–31 in (35–80 cm) long. Flower stalks reach about 8–35 in (20–90 cm).
- Flowers
- Each stalk ends in a short, dense head of a few flowers, golden yellow to clear orange, with petals about 2.4–3 in (6–7.5 cm) long.
- Flowering time
- In gardens it typically blooms in July for 2–3 weeks, and it often blooms again in September.
Look-alikes
Orange daylily has orange-red flowers with a pale stripe down the middle of each petal, and its tall stalks carry 10–20 flowers that open one after another. Amur daylily has just a few golden-yellow to orange flowers packed together at the top of the stalk, wrapped by broad bracts.
Why they get mixed upBoth are daylilies with lily-like summer flowers, and orange daylily grows wild along roadsides across much of the US.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Mountain meadows
- Open woods
- Forest edges
- Wet grasslands
- Range
- Native to the Russian Far East, northeast China, Korea, and Japan. It doesn't grow wild in the US.
- Preferred conditions
- Meadows, mountain slopes, open woods, scrub, and wet grassland, from near sea level up to about 6,600 ft (2,000 m).
Growing it
- Care
- Easy in moist soil and full sun, but it tolerates poor soil and part shade. It's very cold-hardy, listed for USDA zones 3–9.
- Propagation
- Grown from division or seed. Seedlings usually take 2–3 years to flower.
Name and classification
- About the name
- Four varieties are recognized. The Japanese variety esculenta is the famous Nikko-kisuge that carpets mountain meadows in Japan.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
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