Yellow star grass has bright yellow flowers and grasslike leaves. Its rootstock is a corm.
The flowers are 1–6 on a hairy stem, often blooming very close to the ground. Flowers have 3 sepals and 3 petals, which all look alike and are bright yellow above, greenish yellow and hairy below. Blooms April–May; rarely reblooms through summer until October.
The leaves are grasslike, basal, typically to 6 inches long.
The fruit is a small capsule that opens to release several small black shiny seeds.
Height: typically to 6 inches. This species is quite variable in both the size of the plants and the size of the flowers.
Statewide; apparently absent from the southeastern lowlands.
Habitat and Conservation
Occurs on acid soils of moist or dry prairies, meadows, glades, exposed bluff tops, dry open woods, and old fields.
This pretty little flower grows throughout the tallgrass prairie region, from Illinois to eastern parts of Manitoba and the Dakotas, and south to eastern Oklahoma.
Status
Native Missouri wildflower.
Human Connections
Flowers, with their beauty, have an amazing ability to influence our attitudes. Imagine the thoughts of pioneers when they spotted these bright little star flowers during stops along their westward journey!
Ecosystem Connections
Northern bobwhite, and probably other birds as well as mammals, eat the seeds.
Several types of insects visit the flowers for pollen, including a variety of native bees and syrphid flies, and certain types of beetles. Yellow star grass much be cross-pollinated in order to produce viable seed.
Botanists have long been debating the relationships among the plants traditionally considered lilies. In light of new molecular evidence, it is likely this plant will be placed in a family called the Hypoxidaceae, named for its genus. In the past, some botanists have put it in the Amaryllidaceae, the amaryllis family. A more conservative approach keeps it in the lily family, the Liliaceae.
