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Liliaceae FAMILY

Gagea lutea

Gagea lutea

Edibility
1/5
Medicinal
0/5

Safety & Hazards

None known

Cultivation Details

HabitBulb
Growth—

Gagea lutea is a moderately cold-hardy plant, tolerating temperatures down to around -20°c, with the dormant bulb withstanding soil temperatures down to at least -10°c[1]. Requires a moist soil, preferring one on the alkaline side of neutral, and succeeding in sun or shade.

Propagation

Seed - sow spring in a greenhouse[2]. Sow the seed thinly so that there is no need to transplant them, and grow the seedlings on in the same pot in the greenhouse for their first year or two. Give an occasional liquid feed to ensure they do not become nutrient deficient. Pot up the small bulbs when the plants are dormant, placing 2 - 3 bulbs in each pot. Grow them on for another year or two in the greenhouse before planting them out when they are dormant. Division. We have no details of when is the best time to divide the bulbs but suggest doing it after the leaves die down in the summer. Cite as: Temperate Plants Database, Ken Fern. temperate.theferns.info. 2026-02-21. <temperate.theferns.info/plant/Gagea+lutea>

Pollinators

Insects

References

  1. [1]The New Plantsman. Volume 1, 1994. — Matthews. V. · Royal Horticultural Society · 1994 · ISBN 1352-4186 ↩︎A quarterly magazine, it has articles on Himalayacalamus hookerianus, hardy Euphorbias and an excellent article on Hippophae spp.
  2. [2]The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. — Huxley. A. · MacMillan Press · 1992 · ISBN 0-333-47494-5 ↩︎Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.
  3. [3]Flowers of India — http://www.flowersofindia.net/ ↩︎A wed site of native Indian plants, plus cultivated and naturalized species. It has good quality photos and terse details on more than 3,000 species and cultivars.
  4. [4]Flora of the British Isles. — Clapham, Tutin and Warburg. · Cambridge University Press · 1962 · ISBN - ↩︎A very comprehensive flora, the standard reference book but it has no pictures.
  5. [5]A Modern Herbal. — Grieve. · Penguin · 1984 · ISBN 0-14-046-440-9 ↩︎Not so modern (1930's?) but lots of information, mainly temperate plants.
  6. [6]Tanaka's Cyclopedia of Edible Plants of the World. — Tanaka. T. & Nakao S. · Keigaku Publishing; Tokyo · 1976 · ISBN - ↩︎The most comprehensive list of edible plants I've come across. Only the briefest entry for each species, though, and some of the entries are more than a little dubious. Not for the casual reader.
  7. [7]Plants for Human Consumption. — Kunkel. G. · Koeltz Scientific Books · 1984 · ISBN 3874292169 ↩︎An excellent book for the dedicated. A comprehensive listing of Latin names with a brief list of edible parts.