Gagea minima

Little Yellow Star ( Gagea minima)

The Little Yellow Star ( Gagea minima), also known as dwarf yellow star, is in Central Europe very rarely occurring member of the lily family ( Liliaceae ).

Appearance

This perennial herbaceous plant reaches a height 7-15 cm. From other yellow star species, Gagea minima differs inter alia by gradually pointed tepals. The whole plant has a delicate and frail. It has two, differently sized, enclosed by a common skin onions. It grows a single, 1 to 2 mm wide, undergraduate fallen leaf that is flat or slightly rinnig shaped and colored light green, it does not have " hooded top ". At the bottom it is often reddish crowded and it reaches a length of up to 16 cm. The youth leaves are not flowering plants are terete formed and neither boxy nor grooved. The upper stem leaves are small and linear in shape. Only the bottom is larger, divorce shaped, lanceolate and up to 8 mm wide.

The inflorescence is one to siebenblütig. The long-stalked flowers arise from two leaf -like bracts. The narrow tepals are linear - lanceolate, acuminate, about 10 to 15 mm long and yellow. Frequently they curve downward. The flower stems are hairy bald or sparse.

The Little Yellow Star Flowers mainly in the months of March to May.

Habitat requirements, distribution and hazard

Gagea minima grows in mixed deciduous forests and thickets. He prefers fresh, nutrient-rich and loamy soils and is considered a class characteristic species of beech and deciduous oak forests in Europe.

The Little Yellow Star comes from Scandinavia to Central Europe to Southern and Southeastern Europe before. He is also in Asia Minor, to find through the Caucasus to Siberia. He is a Eurasian- continental Florenelement.

In Germany the species is very rare to find in the northeastern and central region. In southern Germany it occurs only in northern Bavaria. In Austria the little yellow star is rare and sometimes endangered, while it is rare to find in Switzerland in the northern limestone chains.