A hybrid daylily, produced in a small coastal community near Halifax, Nova Scotia will soon bear the name of Snow Lake's famous Lady of the Lake. Former childhood resident of Snow Lake, Walter Szumilak, advises that he has put the gears in motion to produce a new strain he says will be called the Kathleen Rice Lily.
During a recent visit at Walter and Marie Szumilak's Head of Chezzetcook, N.S. home, Walter talked about his interest in lilies - he and his wife have over 250 registered varieties of daylilies in their immense and picturesque garden. He also talked about honouring one of Manitoba's famous Northern pioneers. "Alan Banks runs Harbour Breezes Daylilies," Szumilak began. "I have talked to him about Snow Lake and what was recently done to honour both Dick Woosey and Kathleen Rice ... and he thought it (developing and naming a lily after Rice) was a marvellous idea."
Speaking about the splicing and other work intrinsic to developing a new species of daylilies, Szumilak explained that the process takes about three years from the time a seed is planted until the new lily variety produces blossoms and is ready for a registration attempt with the American Hemerocallis Society (of which the Nova Scotia Hemerocallis Society is a part). Once registered, these lilies can be shipped and sold worldwide. There are about 60,000 varieties with about 700 new ones added each year.
"We intend to start in earnest this April, if Allan doesn't have the time to undertake this project," Szumilak said. "I would prefer if he did it, as he has some seedlings that were very promising. However, he has not yet registered any of his productions. But providing it meets all the required factors, such as being able to trace back the ancestry to one plant or another it has a certain number of blossoms and it is hearty - then they'll register it."
The former Snow Laker notes that once the lily is registered, they can start selling it as the Kathleen, Rice Lily. "They sell them to each other, but we will make sure that you get some up in Snow Lake," said Szumilak.
Daylily blossoms only last one day. The seeds are produced through controlled cross-pollination. That is, the male parts (pollen producing stamens) are removed from the seed bearing target blossom. The pistol (female part) is left intact. Pollen from the stamens of a known compatible donor plant is hand brushed onto the pistol stigma of the seed producing target blossom, with an artist's brush. A label is affixed to the scape blossom junction to record parental data, etc. Once the plant matures and produces blossoms, it will be audited for various characteristics and if suitable, a registration application is made to the society. If accepted, it is reproduced through a vegetative propagation and distributed for sale.
For those who wonder what the new variety of lily will look like, Szumilak states that it will be based around one primary colour for sure. "After reading the story on the Red Lady, this Lily must have some red in it," he vowed.
The story Szumilak refers to is from an interview with former Herb Lake resident Stewart Bridgeman and is featured in the book Headframes, Happiness, and Heartaches - The Mines of Manitoba. The relevant passage is quoted below:
Bridgeman states that he knew Kate Rice to see her and actually even spoke to her on a few occasions; however, as a kid, he and others would shy away from the woman. He recollects that after one of the first times he saw her, he and his friends secretly called her the 'Red Lady.' "A few of us, Charlie Bartlett, Buddy Bartlett and I were playing around out on the lake, just out from town," he recalled. "It was pretty cold that day and we saw something red coming across the lake, quite a ways out. Anyway, we kept on playing and would look up every once in a while. It kept getting closer and closer. Pretty soon we realized it was a person. Then we started laughing. Here it was Kate Rice and she had on a pair of bright red Stanfield underwear over top of her winter clothes. We couldn't get over that. To a bunch of kids that looked pretty comical."
As far as hybridization of a lily to develop a red colour, Szumilak states he has read that the colour is invoked by using orange. "You can get any colour you want out of orange," he explained. "Like by crossing an orange one with yellow, you get brown, cross an orange one with a purple one, you get a darker purple." Szumilak and his wife, Marie, already have a number of red daylilies: Crimson Pirate, Crimson Glory, Red Volunteer, Chicago Apache, Sammy Russell, Anzac, Moses Fire, Royal Mountie, Ruby Throat, andRuby Stella to name a few.
Seedlings that have not been registered can be named anddistributed while the registration process is ongoing. However, producers who sell daylilies find it more profitable to get them registered first.
If all goes well, the Kathleen Rice Daylily should be available for purchase several years down the road.
