Gagea sect. Minimae (Pascher) Davlianidze

Zarrei, Mehdi, Wilkin, Paul, Ingrouille, Martin J. & Chase, And Mark W., 2011, A revised infrageneric classification for Gagea Salisb. (Tulipeae; Liliaceae): insights from DNA sequence and morphological data, Phytotaxa 15, pp. 44-56 : 50

Gagea sect. Minimae (Pascher) Davlianidze

Although monophyly of this section was highly supported in analyses conducted by Zarrei et al. (2009) and Peterson et al. (2008), its relationship with other sections in clade D (Figure 4 in Zarrei et al. 2009) is unclear because they form a polytomy. Since the morphological differences between species belonging to G. sect. Minimae are not great, its current rank is probably not appropriate, and it should be merged with other sections in clade D and be reduced to a taxon of lower rank. A "shortly branched inflorescence with alternate phyllotaxis", as described by Peterson et al. (2008), and a flattened basal leaf ( Zarrei et al. 2009) are putative synapomorphies of sect. Minimae, which is not recognised here.