Yellow star grass has bright yellow flowers and grasslike leaves. It grows in prairies, glades, exposed bluff tops, dry open woods, and old fields. It blooms April–May and sometimes through the rest of summer.
Yellow star grass is a short perennial wildflower with grasslike leaves. Its rootstock is a corm.
The flowers are 1–6 on a hairy stem, often blooming very close to the ground. There are 3 sepals and 3 petals, which all look alike and are bright yellow above, greenish yellow and hairy below. Looking more closely at the flowers, the anthers diverge in the lower half, which gives the stamens an "arrowhead" look.
Blooms April–May; rarely reblooms through summer until October.
The leaves are grasslike, basal, typically to 6 inches long, sparsely to densely hairy.
The fruit is a small, dry capsule holding several small, rounded, shiny black seeds covered with tiny bumps or spines.
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
For such a small, dainty plant, yellow star grass is incredibly eye-catching.
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. Insects such as wasps, flies, and beetles are particularly attracted to the color yellow.
Botanists have long debated the relationships among the plants traditionally considered lilies. Formerly placed in the lily family or the amaryllis family, this plant and its close relatives are now in a family called the Hypoxidaceae (hi-pox-ih-DAY-cee-ee), named for its genus.
- Breaking up the lily family into several other families means they are now organized according to their true genetic relationships. But if you try to describe the differences among these families using the actual forms of the plants, it is very difficult, since they share so many characteristics.
- Globally, there are five genera in the Hypoxidaceae, comprising about 150 species. Yellow star grass is Missouri's only member of this family.
