小顶冰花 xiao ding bing hua

Gagea japonica Pascher; G. nipponensis Makino; G. vaginata Pascher (1906), not Popov ex Goloskokov (1955).

Plants 4--15 cm tall. Bulb ovoid or ovoid-globose, 4--7 mm in diam.; tunic brown-yellow or black-brown; bulbels 1 to numerous, crowded within tunic, narrowly ovoid. Leaves basal only, 1, narrowly linear, 5--18 cm × 1--3 mm. Inflorescence usually 2--5-flowered, umbellate. Floral leaf lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, shorter than or equaling inflorescence, 2--5 mm wide, sometimes laxly hairy on basal margin or pilose. Pedicels unequal, pilose or glabrous. Tepals yellow adaxially, yellowish green abaxially, sometimes slightly tinged with dull purple-red, linear, linear-lanceolate, or narrowly ovate, 6--11 × 1--2 mm, sometimes pilose abaxially and proximally, with a sacciform projection at base. Stamens 3--8 mm; filaments flat at base. Style 1.5--4 × as long as ovary. Capsule obovoid or subglobose, 1/4--1/2 as long as persistent tepals. Seeds globose. Fl. and fr. Mar--May.

Forest margins, thickets, mountain grasslands; near sea level to 2300 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi [Korea, Mongolia, Russia].

Records of Gagea hiensis Pascher from China (e.g., in FRPS) are referable to G. terraccianoana.