Anomalies In Daylilies 2

Metallic Eyes:   Metallic eyes (and metallic bands in eyes) are becoming more common in daylilies, so might not now be classified  as being anomalies. See how one band (lighter one) in the seedling at left gives off a metallic glint when turned towards the light? 

Many of these "metallic" eyed daylilies will only give off the metallic glint when twisted this way and that.  However, there are some (e.g. "Metallic Butterfly"...Stamile) that display their metallic eye without having to be twisted this way and that.  I would like to get hold of more daylilies with this trait.  I do have Petit's "Heavy Metal", although he has produced many more (improved)  with this type of eye.  

Some people believe that the eye looks metallic because the cells in the metallic part of the flower have a flattened shape. 

You see this metallic look in lots of birds, and in marine fish, and some tropical fresh-water fish, but I'm unaware of the mechanism or mechanisms at work in their feathers/scales that would be the cause of such metallic effects.  Then I found a clue in a newspaper; see below:

*I  have  read that butterflies with ridges of *parallel* cells will display a metallic look from *all* angles. BUT,when the butterflies' ridges are *tilted at an angle to the scale* the cells will  only produce a flash of colour *at a particular angle*.

TILTED RIDGES OF CELLS, that is they would be tilted like this: ////// or perhaps in the opposite direction.
Perhaps all this somehow relates to daylilies with metallic eyes.  Maybe.  I haven't personally seen a daylily with a metallic eye that is in the *warm* shades (e.g. pink/red/orange).  The gold edges on some daylilies are very often,  as we all know, metallic.  Ridges on butterflies wings that are arranged *randomly*, not parallel or at an angle, will DULL the colour of a butterflies wings...so I've read. 
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Heavily-raised midribs:   I don't know just how common this trait is.  This pale yellow and white blended seedling with the bright-yellow midribs is displayed here only because I wish to show what I mean by *heavily* raised midribs.  This seedling is not special in any other way.  The yellow streaks are so bright that the total effect is not wishy-washy (my opinion).  Heart is small and green.  The "white" in this daylily is whiter in natural sunlight.
 

"What We Didn't See":   Click on this line to see "photo".

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METEORS AND MIDRIBS.   THE YELLOW STREAK:
The other night I was sitting in our living room, watching telly, when something
compelled me to turn my head to the right, and look out through the room's
large, glass doors.   Then I saw it:  A bright-yellow streak arching its way
across the south-western part of our night sky.   The speeding object, with
the bright-yellow light in its wake, appeared to be moving at a tremendous
rate.   Was it a beam from a laser light?   No, the beam was very high in the sky,
and it was curved.   A flare from a flare gun?   No, again the glowing strip was too
high, with trajectory more horizontal than vertical.   An alien spaceship, perhaps?  
No, even though there have been reported sightings of alien craft over Glenbrook
forest in the last 15 years, my partner and I remain sceptical.  When the *big*
sightings occurred in our village some 12 years ago, what we saw on the night was
nothing.   We still refer to the sightings as "What We *Didn't* See"   See "photo"
on link above.

IRON MAN:
Watching the streak I thought for one millisecond there that it might be
"Iron Man".   "Evening, Tony," I half-whispered to the already fading ribbon
of yellow.   But before the streak disappeared I knew what it was.   It
wasn't Tony Stark, or a laser beam.   Nor was it a flare.   Nor was it an
alien spaceship.   It was a *meteor*.  A falling star.  So I made a wish.

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR.....RAISED MIDRIBS:
The first wish I made involved something close to my heart, something that I
considered to be important.   And then I made a second wish.  I wished that
a recently-arrived seedling of mine, one that always displayed a heavily-
raised, bright-yellow streak on each petal (a streak that so reminded me of
the one I'd just seen in the sky), would prove to be the forerunner of more
seedlings in the same *vein*, but more spectacular.  I wished for seedlings
with heavily-raised midribs in different colours to the base colour.  I wished for
bright purple and bright green midribs.  

We've all seen, in daylilies, midribs that are lavender, pink, yellow, white, and even
red, but usually they are *flat* midribs.  Putting purple and green midribs aside,
for the moment,  I'm wondering just how common HEAVILY- raised midribs are in
the more conventional colours of pink/lavender/yellow/white?   Probably more common
than I imagine.  My guess is that raised midribs in daylilies are somehow related to the
trait of sculpting in other daylilies.    Lumpy!  Lumpy I like, which brings me too:

"LUMPY, BUMPY, BABY":
Years ago I had a creamy-coloured seedling bloom for me that sometimes produced lumps
of metallic gold on all its petals.  Those lumps weren't joined in any way to the metallic
gold of the flower's edge.   What happened to it?   Well, for years I tried to get lumpy
babies from it by using it with its full-sibs and half sibs, and by by using it as a grandparent
or a great-grandparent.  I had no luck.  The only lumps that resulted from my efforts in
hybridizing with it were the *hives* I developed each season in response to its disappointing
seedlings.  C.B.  May 2008.

First Daylily Anomalies page on:  http://home.exetel.com.au/bewsher/AnomaliesInDaylilies.htm
Home page link is:  http://home.exetel.com.au/bewsher/index.htm