Your best bet for info. is to go to the AHS website and look up rust and look at the pictures and read the info. there. I sincerely doubt that you would have rust this early in the season. Rust is distinguishable by the postules and the powdery rust that can be rubbed off. Once you've seen it you won't confuse it with any other leaf problems. My guess is that you might have some leaf streak or other leaf damage such as sun scorch,etc.

http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_dictionary/daylily_rust.html

You can give the back side of the leaves a "white gloves" (or rag, whatever) test by rubbing. If orange powdery stuff comes off, then it is likely rust. However, I feel certain it is too cold in Oregon for rust to survive more than one of your winters. It is normal for the outer leaves to begin to look splotchy and rusty-colored as they die off, as they grow from the center outward. If worse comes to worse, you can dig them up, cut the tops back, and soak them in a 10% Clorox solution for 30 minutes. Then replant.

Nancy

Went to those websites, thanks. I worried because it was orange but I don't think it is rust now. I knew that rust was powdery on hollyhocks but there is no powder on these leaves.

We have had a very cold and wet spring and it is probably some kind of fungus. We had a very hard frost early last winter that killed many normally hardy plants and more snow and frost in March will did some more in, guess rust would have been killed.

Just a word to the wise - - Don't let your guard down completely on daylily rust. It takes more than a hard freeze to kill the rust spores. It takes a length of time below freezing to kill them. Since I live in the "daylily rust belt" (Georgia), I've tried to learn as much as possible about rust to minimize its effects in my garden. We had an unusually cold winter too, including snow/ice on the ground for nearly a week in January, but I will bet rust will show its ugly head in middle/late September. I don't remember the amount of cold-time that rust spores require to be killed, but it is measured in days of being below freezing continuously, not just a total of how many hours additively during the winter. In fact, I think that it must really be below freezing (meaning something like 28 degrees or less) for several days. The South sees morning temperatures into the teens during the winter, but it is a rare day that we don't get back to 32+ during daylight hours, and rust continues to thrive. In fact, rust does very well when temperatures are in the 65 - 80 degree range while very few rust spores will germinate when the temperature exceeds 85 degrees (which is every day in from June to mid-September for us), and this is why we see rust in the spring and fall and rarely in the summer while other places where temperatures are more moderate may see it all summer long.
Larry

Rust oh my, I need some advice. My Hollyhocks get rust, can they spread it to my Daylilies? I have a row of daylilies in front of a row of Hollyhocks. Should I run out and pull them up?

No wren-garden,

The rust that affects daylilies only affects daylilies and patrinia. The rust that affects hollyhocks is a different rust. Don't worry, be happy!
Ed

Please keep in mind there are other things that look like rust.

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Thanks Ed, I"m happy now.