Hemerocallis fulva
Daylily is one of the clearer examples of an ornamental plant that also has a real food tradition. UMaine’s edible-flower guidance describes the buds and blooms as having an asparagus-zucchini character, and its newer garden notes go further, noting that the shoots, buds, blooms, and tubers are all edible parts of the plant.12
The most practical kitchen detail is built right into the name: each flower lasts only a day, so the best edible stage is brief and specific.23 Buds can be treated more like a vegetable, while the open flowers are more delicate and better used quickly, either raw or with minimal cooking.14 That short window is part of why daylily feels more like a gathered seasonal ingredient than a standard pantry vegetable.
In the Northeast it persists easily in gardens and along old home sites, which helps explain why it keeps showing up in edible-landscape conversations even though it is not a conventional crop. The plant is a hardy perennial, and the same toughness that makes it easy to divide and maintain also makes it one of those ingredients people tend to encounter first as a flower and only later as food.24
Footnotes
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University of Maine Cooperative Extension, “Edible Flowers: Pretty in Your Garden and a Culinary Delight,” accessed July 24, 2026. ↩ ↩2
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University of Maine Cooperative Extension, “Maine Home Garden Newsletter — May 2026,” accessed July 24, 2026. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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North Carolina Cooperative Extension, “Daylily — Hemerocallis fulva,” accessed July 24, 2026. ↩
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Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, rev. ed. (Scribner, 2004), PDF page 340. ↩ ↩2