Chinese palm

Description

Yucca filifera is a member of the subfamily Agavaceae, family Asparagaceae, native to central Mexico. It was discovered in 1840 in northeastern Mexico between Saltillo and Parras (23°37′0″N 102°34′30″W) on 19 May 1847 by merchant and explorer Josiah Gregg. It was later introduced to Europe and described for science by J. Benjamin Chabaud (1833-1915) in 1876. A tall, heavily branched yucca, Y. filifera has straight, ensiform leaves growing in rosette-shaped bunches from the end of each stem. Its inflorescence hangs over and is made of many separate white flowers. Yucca filifera is not considered to be threatened by the IUCN, as it has a very large range and its population appears to be stable. It is locally used for fibers, and may experience some threat from habitat degradation. Y. filifera can be cultivated in xerophytic conditions. It is used as roof covering and as a source of fibre for handcrafting by the indigenous people, who call it palma china or izote. Am enormous specimen of Yucca filifera stands in front of the Anderson Gallery at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. It was transplanted to this site in the 1880s. In the spring, it bears long clusters of white flowers, some well over a meter long. Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry (arid) parts of the Americas and the Caribbean. The natural distribution range of the genus Yucca (49 species and 24 subspecies) covers a vast area of the Americas. The genus is represented throughout Mexico and extends into Guatemala (Yucca guatemalensis). It also extends to the north through Baja California in the west, northwards into the southwestern United States, through the drier central states as far north as southern Alberta in Canada (Yucca glauca ssp. albertana). Yucca is also native northward to the coastal lowlands and dry beach scrub of the coastal areas of the southeastern United States, along the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic States from coastal Texas to Maryland. Yuccas have adapted to an equally vast range of climatic and ecological conditions.