A Salute to the Daylily: Having your flowers and eating them too

'Wild' growing roadside day lily  
 photo by Jonathan Schechter

Deer eat day lilies.
So do I.
Call this shared passion an act of having your flowers and eating them too. With the dawn of July SE Michigan roadside daylilies have added sparkles of  orange to grassy berms and tall grass meadow edges.  The common daylily is not native to America but came to our shores with early settlers that landed  on the eastern shore and conquered and marched west.
 
The invasion was a great success.
For the invading humans.
For the naturalizing orange-blossomed plant with great beauty and sweet taste.

I have been muching on daylilies for well over three decades. The raw petals are delicious when first picked at dawn and the closed pods can be fried like fritters.  As a matter of fact the entire plant is edible and also offers tubers and young shoots in spring. I add  petals to salads.
CAUTION: Although considered an edible plant  loved by foragers and used in soups and salads in some Chinese resturants, there are always some who can have stomach upsets with new foods. And never gather or pick any wild edibles from a chemical sprayed roadside or edge of major paved road.