A message from our AHS President, Kevin Walek (May 25, 2006)

As a fellow computer user, I am pleased to announce two new online AHS services:

1) the capability to register your daylilies online, and 2) a searchable cultivar database.

Both of the products are located at the www.daylilydatabase.org link. You should go there and try them out.

Our new site has some other nice things for you. For example, you can find listings of all of the approved cultivars for several special categories that are in our flower shows, including doubles, spiders, unusual forms, and polytepals. These lists can be viewed online, or printed, using convenient buttons.

If there is a name that you are considering using, you will find a listing of all of the currently reserved names, along with the expiration dates on their reservations. You've always had to take a chance and just submit your new name, or call our Registrar to get the name checked. Now you can check directly, and this name list will be updated very frequently.

Another thing that will make the officials holding a daylily show happy is the list of the cultivars whose registration data has changed. You can print this information and use it for your exhibition shows.

You're going to see some pictures. Granted, we don't have them for most cultivars, but we will add the images for all future registrations, and will add earlier registrations as time and resources become available.

As you become more familiar with the use of the database, please make notes about your experiences, and send them to Maurice Greene, nmgreene40@comcast.net, who will review them and let his Technology Committee compile a list of things that we can do to make your searching experiences like you want them. With your input, we can make future releases of the software better. We need you on our evaluation team!

With the help of the technology team, especially Gretchen and Maurice, I have put together the following discussion based upon my initial experiences with using the database, and trying to describe using it to my wife, who, although an accountant and computer literate, does not go around doing searches of various plant registration databases. She found them helpful and so, I hope, will you.

If you want to stop here, there are also instructions on the website to help you along as you are using it.

ONLINE DAYLILY REGISTRATION AND DATABASE SEARCHING

In 1999, the American Hemerocallis Society launched a long-range plan to use computer technologies to deal with registered daylilies. Thus, the AHS has used computerized procedures to create and maintain a database for all registered daylilies for several years. This database is useful for many things, such as making it much easier to produce the new checklists that are printed each year.

Our database has been available in a searchable form on a CD. The CD's have been updated each year to include the complete data collection, including those introduced during the previous year. Many of you know these CD's, because you use them at home and in your daylily shows. Using them in exhibition shows has proven to be a great benefit, since it precludes the need to have a complete set of old checklists available to help out in identifying cultivars and the categories in which they can be shown.

Prior to 2006, all registration entry data have been handled using paper forms. The images of the new daylilies normally are mailed to the Registrar, along with the registration fees. The procedure for doing a check on whether a particular name has already been reserved has required direct communication with the Registrar. These checks have been made by mail, email, or phone communication.

Many members have expressed interest in two new features:

1) Some of you want the ability to do your daylily registration transactions online, including sending in all of the registration data, sending a digital image of the daylily, and even making your registration fee payments.
2) Others of you have stated that an online searchable database would make you happier.

The American Hemerocallis Society's Daylily Registration web site is now open and ready for your enjoyment. The AHS Daylily Registration site is located at www.DaylilyDatabase.org and represents our initial attempt to provide you with these services. It is a free resource for daylily enthusiasts featuring a search mechanism for querying the AHS registration record, and it is also a convenient tool for hybridizers to utilize for registering daylilies online.

Online Registration

We believe that you will like a new way of registering daylilies.

At the top of the page you will see a button called "Registration". When you click on this button, you will see a drop-down menu that will allow you the choice of registering a cultivar, printing a copy of our paper registration form (the previous way of registering daylilies will still be available for all of those who are more comfortable with that procedure), or for seeing a copy of the information about what you need to do to register a new daylily.

If you elect to register a daylily online, you will bring up a page that has places to enter all of the necessary data. When you are through making your entries, you can submit your entry by clicking on a "Submit" button.

You will notice that there are several fields that are required fields, just as on the paper registration form. You will have to enter all of these fields before the registration information will be accepted.

Now let's suppose that you entered data that was accepted, and that you change your mind or realize that you made a mistake. Is all lost? Can you go back in and find your entry and make changes? The answer, of course, is "No". Think about it. You weren't asked for any information that absolutely identifies you, other than your name and email address. You wouldn't want anyone who knows just those two pieces of information to be able to go to your registration entries and make changes to "your"
data. You'll have to call the Registrar and identify yourself and request the changes. Still, you haven't lost your work.

We think you'll like another thing about the process. After you get through submitting the textual data, you'll automatically be routed to a place where you can submit a digital copy of a slide or photograph of the daylily. Here you'll need to know how to find the image on your computer, but, with that knowledge, you have an easy way of completing another part of the registration procedure. (You may need to consult your local computer guru on how to do this, but we know it'll be worth it for you to find out how.)

Now you need to pay the registration fee. You can use the old method and write a check and send it to the Registrar, but we now have a new way. You can make your payment online using PayPal®. You don’t have to be registered with PayPal to use it. All you need is a credit card from a major credit card company, and you can give PayPal the information about your account and make the payment. The transactions will be made over a “secure connection”, such that you have assurance that your private information won’t be compromised. Why would you want to pay very promptly? Registrations are processed in the order of payment postmark, such that, if someone else chooses the name you want (or even a name close to it, they will have a lock on the name. The first person who pays will have the name entered into the name approval process.

What have we done for those of you who want to continue to use the paper registration method? You can download a copy of the registration form from our web site and print it out. You no longer have to keep stacks of "copies of copies" that can look pretty rough after a while.

Another thing that all of you will like is that you can go to the button for "Classification Lists" and click on it. You'll get a drop-down menu that will list "Reserved Names" down near the bottom. Click on that, and then click on the PDF button at the top of the page. You'll get a list of all of the currently reserved names, along with the date when
they were reserved and the date that the reservation expires, that will help you avoid making a name choice that you know is already taken. You can print this off and keep a copy to help you on future name selections. In the past, your only way to find out if a particular name is reserved was to contact the Registrar to ask your questions, and,
even here, you had no way of quickly reserving it, because you couldn't pay over the phone line.

We think you will like Online Registration! Try it and give us your suggestions to make it even better.

Database Searching Capabilities

Many of you have used our CD, and you know what it allows you to do.

Without apologies, we'll say that the online searching options are not as extensive as those on the CD. We simply haven't had enough time to include all that we wanted to, but we didn't want to hold back on releasing something for you to try, any longer than absolutely necessary. We do not consider this site to be competition for the CD. The AHS plans to maintain both facilities for as long as they are both used by a large number of our members.

Let's start describing the online searching capabilities by saying that both the CD and the online database contain the same entries; that is to say that they contain the more than 55,000 cultivars that were registered up through the end of 2005.

The Daylily Registry has a uniform appearance on every page of the web site. Across the top of each page is the site's navigation menu system. Under the "Searches" tab on the menu you will find links to six different search utility pages. These pages are:

1. Cultivar Names
2. Hybridizer Names
3. Doubles
4. Spiders
5. Polytepals
6. Unusual Forms

The search utilities have been designed for ease of use with many of the tools being a simple "point and click" procedure yielding powerful results. The actual database search is performed "server-side" which allows for the searches to be performed rapidly and users with dial-up connections or high-speed internet connections will have their searches performed in exactly the same amount of time. Dial-up users may experience a slight delay as images will not download quite as fast as high-speed users, but this is typical with these different types of connections.

To start your search, you go to the top of the page and click on "Searches". This will bring up a menu that says, Cultivar Names, Hybridizer Names, Doubles, Spiders, Polytepals, and Unusual Forms.

Click on "Cultivar Names", and, as you would guess, you can search on the names of daylilies. If you simply type in some names; for example, Barbara Mitchell, and then hit the "Submit" button, the program will locate all of the cultivars that have the name Barbara in their name or the name Mitchell in their name. In this case, you will locate 74 cultivars. You don't have to type in the full names. If you typed in Barb Mitc, you will locate 99 cultivars, because it just looks for names that have the character sequence Barb or Mitc anywhere in the names. If you want to limit the searches considerably, you can put a comma in between the names. For example, using Barbara, Mitchell locates only one entry-in this case, 'Barbara Mitchell', because it looks for names that have both Barbara and Mitchell in the name. You will quickly find
that using a comma in your searches will much more quickly home in on exactly what you want.

If you already know the complete name of the flower, put it in double quotes, for example, "Barbara Mitchell". This search locates one cultivar.

When you find a group of cultivars, the descriptions of these can be listed out 20 at a time until you get to the one you want. This is the reason you will want to pay special attention to the comma that I just mentioned to keep from hitting the "Next" button too many times to get to your desired name. You're absolutely going to want to limit the number of cultivars your search locates to the lowest number you can.

Another thing you're going to like is that there are already some pictures in the database. There aren't many right now, but you can rest assured that, as new cultivars are added, these will be added, and we plan to go back and include some pictures for many older daylilies.

The search menus vary a little, depending on which of the search category you choose. For example, if you choose "Hybridizer Name", you will be able to get a drop-down menu with codes for all persons who have registered daylilies. Click on one of the codes, and hit "Display" and you will get all of the daylilies that a particular hybridizer has introduced.

Under "Doubles" you're going to find something else that we think you'll like. Here you can specify a size range for the bloom and locate daylilies that are registered in that range. You can also get a drop-down menu containing the names of the more than 2000 daylilies in this category.

Under "Spiders" we have something that spider lovers are really going to like, and that is the ability to specify a range on the ratios under which the spiders are registered. For example, you can find all between 5.6 and 6.2, etc. You can also search on bloom size range, and you can get a drop-down list of all registered spiders.

On "Polytepals" you can search on the range in which a polytepal is said to be "Polytepalous", and you can get a drop-down list of their names.

For "Unusual Forms" you have another great option. There's a drop down menu for the different types of unusual forms that will let you home in on a specific kind of unusual form. For example, you can use the button for "cascade-spatulate", and find the 3 cultivars that were registered this way.

In short, you can see that we have the pieces. There's still some "assembly work" to be done, but we think you can have fun with our trial program.

Try out the searches. When you see things that you think should be modified, give us some feedback. You can send them to Maurice Greene, nmgreene40@comcast.net, our Technology Chair, who will have his committee review them and make recommendations for where we should take this. Or, you can also click on a button that will allow you to send an email to me. Please use it to make comments or ask me any questions about the registration process that you want to know. We know of a lot
of things we want to do and we won't muddy the waters by mentioning them, but please do send in your suggestions so we can be sure that we don't miss something really, really nice.

Other Nice Features

Our site also has some other nice features that you haven't been able to access directly. Under the button for "Classification" lists, you will notice that you can find a list of all registered doubles, spiders, polytepals, and unusual forms. The only folks who have this information in the past have been your show chairs, who receive these lists when they request holding an accredited exhibition show.

I've already mentioned the "Reserved Name" list, and why you might want it.

Finally, there's a listing of cultivars that have had their registration data modified by persons who introduced them. On the page you'll see, only the cultivars that have had changes for 2005 are listed, but there's a button to click on to get a listing of all of the cultivars that have been changed. You can print this and take it to your shows to help avoid classification problems.

The American Hemerocallis Society is proud to present you with this first generation online Daylily Registry search utility. It is a fast and powerful essential tool for any daylily grower and enthusiast. Look for us to offer continuing enhancements to this fine utility, and keep an eye out for the inclusion of the official daylily registration
cultivar images in the Daylily Registry in the very near future. We are just getting started, so please take your time, enjoy, and take advantage of this wonderful resource provided by the American Hemerocallis Society.

My thanks for this effort go out to David White, the software contractor, Gretchen Baxter, Barbara Watts, and Maurice Greene for their parts in getting us to this stage.

Your Friend in Daylilies,

Kevin Walek