Although each flower stays open only one day, a mature plant can produce dozens of flowers and stay in bloom for more than three weeks. There are about twenty different species of wild daylilies, all native to China, eastern Siberia, Korea, and Japan.
Several species are economically important in Asia.
They have been collected and cultivated for thousands of years for food and medicine, long before they were used as ornamentals in the garden. The buds of the tawny daylily, Hemerocallis fulva , are still used as a food flavoring in Asian cooking and can be eaten raw or cooked. Over the centuries, daylilies were transported far outside their native range and have become naturalized in other regions of the world. They were brought to Europe much about the sixteenth century. The tawny daylily has spread throughout the temperate world and is a common sight along roadsides and in old gardens in much of North America.