Using a literal asterisk (*) in a filename within command substitution in bash

how do you supply a literal asterisk * when specifying a filename to a command substitution in bash? Consider the following directory:

host:/tmp/backtick-test# ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  0 29 Jun 23:18 test
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  0 29 Jun 23:18 test*

I can't work out how to specify the second file test* with $(). List both files:

host:/tmp/backtick-test# ls test*
test  test*

List only the file with the trailing *:

host:/tmp/backtick-test# ls test\*
test*

Now with commmand expansion:

host:/tmp/backtick-test# echo $(ls test*)
test test test*

Returns three filenames.

/tmp/backtick-test# echo $(ls -al "test*")
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 29 Jun 23:18 test test*

Better, returns two but I only want the second one.