Gagea lutea(L.) Ker Gawl.

yellow star of Bethlehemyellow star-of-Bethlehemyellow star-of-bethlehem

WFO wfo-0000768544 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Gagea lutea, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-15 / obs. 197886901
Gagea lutea, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. b Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197887914
Gagea lutea, photographed by Aleksey Shumkov
fig. c Aleksey Shumkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196485315
Gagea lutea, photographed by Ilkka Tuunainen
fig. d Ilkka Tuunainen, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 196030301
Gagea lutea, photographed by aga_l_
fig. e aga_l_, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195629183
Gagea lutea, photographed by Eugene Popov
fig. f Eugene Popov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194721543
Gagea lutea, photographed by Марина Садыкова
fig. g Марина Садыкова, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194745444
Gagea lutea, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. h Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193648756

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 47 botanical countries

Regions where Gagea lutea is native: Afghanistan, Altay, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuril Is., North Caucasus, Sakhalin, Transcaucasus, West Siberia, East Himalaya, Nepal, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AfghanistanAltayIranJapanKazakhstanNorth CaucasusSakhalinTranscaucasusWest SiberiaEast HimalayaNepalPakistanWest HimalayaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Korea
Native distribution of Gagea lutea, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Altay ALT
Iran IRN
Japan JAP
Kazakhstan KAZ
Korea KOR
Kuril Is. KUR
North Caucasus NCS
Sakhalin SAK
Transcaucasus TCS
West Siberia WSB
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
Nepal NEP
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is., Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 1,417 in flower of 1,493 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Gagea lutea observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 1,417 of 1,493 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,960 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.7 °C -5.3 °C -0.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.0 °C 22.9 °C 25.7 °C
Annual rainfall 539 mm 690 mm 1,153 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 88 mm 116 mm 216 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,960 research-grade observations of Gagea lutea that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 59 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Gagea elegans Wall.
  • Gagea elegans Wall. ex G.Don
  • Gagea fascicularis Salisb.
  • Gagea fascicularis var. multiplex Gray
  • Gagea glauca Blocki
  • Gagea glauca Sweet
  • Gagea indica Pascher
  • Gagea lowariensis Pascher
  • Gagea lutea f. banatica (Asch. & Graebn.) Zacharof
  • Gagea lutea f. bulbillifera Zoz & Kultenko
  • Gagea lutea f. gracillima (Schur) Zacharof
  • Gagea lutea f. maxima (Schur) Zacharof
  • Gagea lutea f. simplex (Schur) Zacharof
  • Gagea lutea f. szepusiana (Ullep.) Zacharof
  • Gagea lutea f. szepusiana (Ullep.) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Gagea lutea var. angustifolia A.Terracc.
  • Gagea lutea var. australis A.Terracc.
  • Gagea lutea var. australis Lindem.
  • Gagea lutea var. banatica Asch. & Graebn.
  • Gagea lutea var. bifida Goiran
  • Gagea lutea var. bulbifera Grinţ.
  • Gagea lutea var. bulbifera Goiran
  • Gagea lutea var. foliosa A.Terracc.
  • Gagea lutea var. glauca A.Terracc.

and 35 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.