Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Navajo yucca

(Yucca baileyi)

galery
en

Description

Yucca baileyi is a plant in the family Agavaceae. It is native to Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado but has been cultivated elsewhere. Much of its native range is within the boundaries of the Navajo (Diné) Reservation, hence the common name "Navajo yucca." The Navajo people make extensive use of yucca fibers to make a wide assortment of useful and ceremonial items. They also use the roots as soap. It is not considered to be threatened, as it has a large range and an overall stable population. Yucca baileyi is a relatively small species, usually acaulescent but sometimes with a short leafy stem. It can produce as many as 15 rosettes. Flowering stalk is up to 150 cm tall, with greenish-white to slightly purplish flowers. 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. Early reports of the species were confused with the cassava (Manihot esculenta). Consequently, Linnaeus mistakenly derived the generic name from the Taíno word for the latter, yuca. The Aztecs living in Mexico since before the Spanish arrival, in Nahuatl, call the local yucca species (Yucca gigantea) iczotl, which gave the Spanish izote. Izote is also used for Yucca filifera. 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. 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 subtropical and semitemperate zones, although these are generally arid to semi-arid.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order:Asparagales
Family:Asparagaceae
Genus:Yucca
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