Considerably expanded and updated on the original The Color Encyclopedia of Daylilies, published in 2000, The New Encylopedia of Daylilies follows very much the same format. Authors Ted L Petit and John P Peat, both daylily hybridisers amongst other things, have also made several changes and additions to the original. Firstly it is considerably enlarged; there are around 100 additional pages, and many more pictures, over 1700 of which 1400 are new to his edition. There is a very large chapter on daylilies of the future, and looking the other way there are more of the older varieties of significance included. While the chapter on Hybridizers of Today is noticeable extended, much of the information however in other chapters under the main headings The Daylily Plant and The History of the Daylily remains basically the same, with just some minor edits.

With around 60,000 registered daylilies to choose from, up by some 20,000 since the original publication, the authors not surprisingly admit to the difficulty of choosing which to include. They explain that their choice is based on those which, through their own experience, they believe are the most worthy and worthwhile cultivars. They have also considered other sources such as the popularity polls of the American Hemerocallis Society and winners of AHS awards. They have also taken into account those plants which are most widely grown based on information in the Eureka Daylily Reference Guide. With the seeming popularity of Spider, Variants and Unusual Forms it is a little surprising that this particular section is no larger than the original edition. I suspect Messes Peat and Petit have a preference for the rounder and ruffled forms. The section Daylilies of the future is very large and contains many beautiful unnamed seedlings, but showing so many is rather like putting child in a sweet shop and telling him he can’t have any, for without the names we will never in fact be able to have them.

This book is certainly a valuable addition on the subject of the Daylily, and it is a handsome and generally well produced volume. I have a coupe of criticisms, firstly for some reason the alphabetical arrangement of the cultivars appears in places to have been abandoned; secondly, and this was a criticism of the original edition too, that a few of the pictures are of suspect quality with either poor focusing or lighting. The reproduced colour of some of the daylilies might also be call into question, but they are notoriously difficult to photograph accurately being very subject to the effects of the lighting; the colour and form is also affected by climate and even the length of time the plant has been growing – so it is difficult too be to critical here. But that aside it is a worthy publication. ( )