Yucca

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This article is about the genus comprising species of perennials, shrubs, and trees. For other uses, see Yucca (disambiguation).
Yucca
Yucca filamentosa in New Zealand
Yucca filamentosa in New Zealand
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Monocots
Order: Asparagales
Family: Agavaceae
Genus: Yucca
L.
Species

many, see text

The yuccas comprise the genus Yucca of 40-50 species of perennials, shrubs, and trees in the agave family Agavaceae, notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal clusters of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry (arid) parts of North America, Central America, and the West Indies.

Yuccas have a very specialized pollination system, being pollinated by the yucca moth; the insect purposefully transfers the pollen from the stamens of one plant to the stigma of another, and at the same time lays an egg in the flower; the moth larva then feeds on some of the developing seeds, but far from all.

Yuccas are widely grown as ornamental plants in gardens. Many yuccas also bear edible parts, including fruits, seeds, flowers, flowering stems, and more rarely roots, but use of these is sufficiently limited that references to yucca as food more often than not stem from confusion with the similarly spelled but botanically unrelated yuca.

Dried yucca has the lowest ignition temperature of any wood, making it desirable for fire-starting.citation needed

The "yucca flower" is the state flower of New Mexico. No species name is given in the citation.

Contents

Distribution

Distribution of the capsular fruited species in southwest, midwest USA, Mexico Baja California and Canada. Overview I
Yucca faxoniana in Texas, with mature fruits.
Yucca schidigera in Nevada, in full bloom.

The natural distribution range of the genus Yucca (49 species and 24 subspecies) covers a vast area of north- and central America. From Baja California in the west, northwards into the southwestern USA, through the drier central states as far north as Canada (Alberta province, Yucca glauca ssp. albertana), and moving east along the Gulf of Mexico, and then north again, through the Atlantic coastal and inland neighbouring states. To the south, the genus is represented throughout Mexico and extends into Guatemala (Yucca elephantipes). Yuccas have adapted to an equally vast range of climatic and ecological conditions. They are to be found in rocky deserts and badlands, in prairies and grassland, in mountainous regions, in light woodland, in coastal sands (Yucca filamentosa), and even in sub-tropical and semi-temperate zones, although these are nearly always arid to semi-arid.

Species

Yucca aloifolia Aloe yucca, Spanish Bayonet
Yucca brevifolia Joshua tree
Yucca constricta Buckley's yucca
Yucca baccata Banana yucca, datil
Yucca decipiens Palma China
Yucca elata Soaptree yucca
Yucca filamentosa Spoonleaf yucca, Filament yucca, or Adam's Needle
Yucca filifera Palma Chuna yucca
Yucca flaccida Flaccid leaf yucca
Yucca glauca Great Plains yucca
Yucca gloriosa Moundlily yucca, Adam's needle, Spanish Dagger
Yucca grandiflora Sahuiliqui yucca
Yucca guatemalensis Spineless yucca
Yucca harrimaniae Harriman's yucca
Yucca intermedia Intermediate Yucca
Yucca jaliscensis Izote
Yucca kanabensis Kanab yucca
Yucca lacandonica Tropical yucca
Yucca madrensis Soco yucca
Yucca nana Dwarf yucca
Yucca pallida Pale yucca
Yucca periculosa Izote
Yucca recurvifolia Curve-leaf yucca
Yucca rigida Blue yucca
Yucca rostrata Big Bend yucca
Yucca rupicola Texas yucca, or Twist-leaf yucca
Yucca schidigera Mojave yucca
Yucca schottii Hoary yucca or Mountain yucca
Yucca standleyi
Yucca thompsoniana Thompson's Yucca
Yucca thornberi
Yucca torreyi Torrey yucca
Yucca treculiana Texas bayonette, Trecul's yucca
Yucca valida Datilillo
Yucca yucatana Yucatan yucca

A number of other species previously classified in Yucca are now classified in the genera Dasylirion, Furcraea, Hesperaloe, Hesperoyucca and Nolina.

Taxonomic arrangement

Cultivars

In the years from 1897 to 1907, Carl Ludwig Sprenger created and named 122 Yucca hybrids.

Other facts

Because of their omnipresence in the southwestern United States, yuccas have lent their name to several places:

Yuccas are poisonous to rabbits.

Yucca plants and Yucca moths have a Mutualistic relationship. Yucca plants are dependent on Yucca moths for pollination and Yucca moths can only lay their eggs in a Yucca plant's flower. The Yucca moth lays its eggs in the yucca plant at the same time pollinating it. The moth makes sure not to lay too many eggs in each flower to prevent the larva from eating all of the Yucca seeds. This is the Yucca plant's only means of pollination, as it cannot pollinate itself.citation needed

References

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yucca

Gallery

Joshua Trees(Yucca brevifolia), growing in the Mojave Desert

Unknown species near Orosí, Costa Rica.

Yucca near Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico.

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 3 December 2008, at 21:17.

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