Daylilies seem like a quintessential American flower, its orange blossoms blazing as they do along the edges of summer byways. And yet daylilies have an ancient history beginning in China about 5000 year ago. Chi Pai wrote a materia medica for Emperor Huang Ti dating back to 2697 B.C. when the flowers were more used medically than for ornament. By 1500 C.E. the daylily had travelled to Europe. In 1793 Linneaus, who introduced the binomial system of nomenclature,…