Tiny Star
Perspective, Small Hand
Ellura
Thread Iris
Flowering
 
                      
Tiny Star (Pauridia glabella var glabella)Class: Plants (Plantae) - Land Plants (Charophyta) - Land Plants (Equisetopsida)
Order: Asparagus (Asparagales)
Family: Hypoxis (Hypoxidaceae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Tiny Star (Pauridia glabella var glabella)
This Photo:     Perspective, with Boot Toe
Synonym: Hypoxis glabella var glabella
Other name: Star Grass

Thank you Geoffrey Cox for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Flinders Ranges and elsewhere
Flowers ~8mm to ~14mm wide. Leaves ~1mm wide.
While it looks like the flowers have 6 petals, they are 3 petals and 3 sepals.
Notice in the photo, of a patch of 11 flowering plants, the massive size difference between them in one location.

There is a very similar one that is generally larger, Yellow Star (Pauridia vaginata). The differences are difficult to spot in photographs unless they are targetted with a macro lens. P. vaginata has flowers 15-25 mm wide, leaves 1-3.5 mm wide. As you can see, sizes almost meet so can't be used to distinguish in all cases; ie a large Tiny Star is close to the same size as a small Yellow Star.
A more reliable diagnostic (remember, plants can get eaten so a missing bract isn't definitive) are the bract counts. Geoff said "P. vaginata has one bract part way up the stem".
Pauridia glabella has 2 bracts at the base of the flower stem, as shown here.
However, these bracts are not always visible, and so small they are very difficult to photograph.

Copyright © 2013-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 06-Jun-2013
This species is classed as LC (Least Concern) in the Murray Mallee, SA, by DENR (Regional Species Status Assessments, July 2010)