Growing Daylilies Together

Does anyone know if an AHS registration exists for LADY LUCILLE? LADY LUCILLE is a marketing name given a flower by the All American Daylily group. No AHS registration exists by this name (according to the database). If someone wanted to show this daylily in an AHS approved show they would need to know a registration name for this flower (if it exists).

My Folks have Lady Lucille and the information I found was that it was from Blooms of Bressingham they have a whole line of "Lady ..." daylilies. What gets me is when an AHS display garden sells them (I don't care where they have them planted but if its in their catilog its in their garnden) and they don't let folks know that they aren't an AHS registered daylily.

Lady Lucille is listed as a trademarked daylily. Furthermore, it may appear with the notation (TM PPAF) the meaning of which is "trade mark - plant patent applied for."

I am going to copy a couple of paragraphs from the FAQ's page of the web site below. For more information, go to this page and to the website in general.

www.plantpatent.com/faq

Q. What Is a Plant Patent?
A. A plant patent is a grant by the government to an inventor (or his heirs or assigns) who has “invented” or discovered and asexually reproduced a distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state. This grant gives the plant patent owner the right to exclude others from asexually reproducing the plant and from using, offering for sale, or selling the plant so reproduced, or any of its parts, throughout the United States, or from importing the plant so reproduced, or any parts thereof, into the United States.

Q. What Types of New Plants are Patentable?
A. New and distinct varieties of plants fall roughly into three classes: (1) sports, (2) mutants, and (3) hybrids. In the case of sports, the new and distinct variety results from bud variation and not seed variation. A plant or portion of a plant may suddenly assume an appearance or character distinct from that which normally characterize the variety or species. In the case of mutants, the new and distinct variety results from seedling variation by self-pollination. In the case of hybrids, the new and distinct variety results from seedlings of cross-pollination of two species, of two varieties, or of a species and a variety. In this case, the word “hybrid’ is used in its broadest sense.

I am not a lawyer, so don't trust my legal judgment, but based on another section that says a plant patent lasts for 20 years from the date the application is made, I would think that Lady Lucille is well beyond the patent's time limitation, thus available in general commerce. Also, based on the definition, it seems that every new daylily cultivar could be patented, but this would restrict much of the commerce of daylilies that we now enjoy.

Larry

"Propagation prohibited" - I think I would boycott any daylilies sold with this caveat - it goes against the whole idea of daylilies being a divide and pass around plant. That said, I do have Lady Lucille growing in my garden. I think I bought it from Oakes, and I didn't notice any kind of prohibition with it. I think maybe a few years of prohibition for any kind of new hybrid would be acceptable, but not 20.

Does this mean the daylily isn't allowed to increase at all?