Yucca
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the potato-like vegetable, see yuca.
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 Yucca baccata in Red Rock Canyon, Nevada
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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 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 eats 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.
The "yucca flower" is the state flower of New Mexico. No species name is given in the citation.
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[edit] Species
- Yucca aloifolia, Aloe yucca
- [[]], Buckley's yucca
- [[]], Spoonleaf yucca or Filament yucca
- 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 harrimaniae, Harriman's yucca
- Yucca intermedia
- 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.
[edit] Cultivars
In the years from 1897 to 1907, Carl Ludwig Sprenger created and named 122 beautiful Yucca hybrids.
[edit] Other facts
Because of their omnipresence in the southwestern United States, yuccas have lent their name to several places:
- Yucca, Arizona
- Yucca Valley, California
- Yucca Mountain, Nevada
- Yucca House National Monument
[edit] References
- M. & G. Irish, Agaves, Yuccas, and Related Plants: a Gardener's Guide (Timber Press, 2000). ISBN 0-88192-442-3
- Common names of yucca species
- UVSC Herbarium - Yucca
- New Mexico Statutes and Court Rules: State Flower
