Is Daylily toxic to cats?
Hemerocallis spp. · Asphodelaceae
Yes. Can kill a cat.
A different genus from the true lily and just as lethal to a cat's kidneys.
For a cat
Can kill
For a person
Irritating
What to watch for
- Vomiting
- Loss of appetite
- Lethargy
- Kidney failure
- Death is possible
Same clocks as the true lily: first signs within hours, kidney failure over the following days.
The numbers
Cats only
Species affected
Bertero et al. 2020
Why, and which parts
All parts, including the vase water.
Toxic principle: Unknown, as with true lilies.
The same unexplained kidney failure as the true lily, in a plant from an entirely different family. That coincidence is worth stating plainly, because it defeats the usual shortcut: you cannot tell whether a flower is dangerous from what it is related to. The two genera share almost nothing botanically, and both destroy the same structures in a cat's kidney.
How to recognize it
Flowers that open for a single day, borne on leafless stalks above a fountain of strap-shaped leaves growing straight from the ground. The commonest orange roadside lily is this, not a Lilium.
Sold as: Day lily, Orange daylily, Ditch lily. A label on a pot is a trade name, not a botanical one, and the two often disagree.
Plants it gets confused with
Leaves clothe the flowering stem in a true lily, while a daylily's leaves all rise from the base.
Why it matters: Both are emergencies, so telling them apart matters less than recognizing that either one is.
And for a person?
Mildly irritating to a person
The flowers are eaten in some cuisines. The raw plant is not harmless to people in quantity, and this is one of the plants whose human and feline risks differ most sharply.
A plant's danger to a cat says nothing about its danger to you, and the reverse is just as true. This is a separate question with a separate answer.
This is information, not veterinary advice, and it cannot tell you what is wrong with your cat. Our rule is a simple one: if something is wrong with your cat, call your vet, and call an emergency clinic if it is out of hours. Nothing you read here is a reason to wait.
Worth keeping a paw on
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To recognize the plant the day you come across it, and warn the friends whose cat goes outside. One click and it sits in your board.
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Other plants at the same level
Same verdict for a cat as Daylily. The ones sharing its exact toxic principle come first.
