Hook.
Description
Lloydia longiscapa Hook. is a delicate bulbous geophyte of the high Himalaya. According to GBIF (about 75 occurrences) it ranges across Nepal, northern India, southern China (Tibetan plateau margins) and Bhutan, growing in alpine meadows, on grassy and rocky slopes and among open turf near the upper limit of vegetation. It is a true high-alpine plant, recorded chiefly between 3,500 and 4,500 m. The populations documented at Kalmura in West Nepal (4,100 m) and Khiar Kutti in Garhwal (3,900 m), both flowering in June, illustrate its phenology as a snow-melt species that emerges and blooms shortly after the retreat of the winter snowpack.
The plant develops from a small ovoid bulb enclosed in membranous tunics, producing one or few slender stems. The leaves are narrowly linear, almost grass-like, with basal leaves longer than the few reduced cauline ones. The flowers are solitary or few, erect, broadly campanulate, with six free, white to pale yellowish tepals usually marked with fine purplish veins and a small nectary at the base; the long, slender scape gives the species its epithet "longiscapa". Stamens are six, the ovary superior and three-locular, maturing into a loculicidal capsule containing numerous flat seeds.
GBIF flags this name as a synonym; the genus Lloydia is now widely subsumed within Gamochaeta-unrelated Gagea (Gagea sensu lato), so the taxon is best treated under the accepted concept indicated by current authorities while retaining Lloydia longiscapa as the working name. As a snow-bed and alpine-turf specialist it exemplifies the bulbous "spring ephemeral" strategy adapted to short Himalayan growing seasons, and its restricted high-elevation habitat warrants attention under scenarios of alpine climate change.
Author: Hook. · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Nepal, GBIF, Stearn: Notes on the genus Lloydia