Abstract
Time of flower anthesis in a day is thought to evolve in response to the time of pollinator activities. We studied blooming and withering time in natural populations of daylily (Hemerocallis fulva), nightlily (Hemerocallis citrina) and their hybrids, and also in an artificially obtained array of the F1 hybrids. Blooming time of H. fulva varied from 4:30 to 7:30 and H. citrina varied from 16:30 to 20:30. In a natural hybrid population, blooming time and withering time showed discontinuous bimodal distribution in spite that morphological traits of flowers showed continuous unimodal variation. Most F1 hybrids showed diurnal flowering. These findings indicate that only a few genes have strong phenotypic effect on the determination of flowering time in Hemerocallis, and suggest that the evolution from a H. fulva-like ancestor to H. citrina was not a continuous process by accumulation of minute mutations.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Eiichi Kasuya and Takashi Miyake for their critical comments on the manuscript, Yoh Iwasa, Hidenori Tachida, and Shiro Kobayashi for their valuable comments on the project, and Michikazu Hiramatsu for his kind help in the field and in the nursery of University Farm.
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Hasegawa, M., Yahara, T., Yasumoto, A. et al. Bimodal distribution of flowering time in a natural hybrid population of daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) and nightlily (Hemerocallis citrina). J Plant Res 119, 63–68 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-005-0241-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-005-0241-3