Izote cenizo

(Yucca thompsoniana)

galery

Description

Yucca thompsoniana, the Thompson's yucca, is a plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to Texas, Chihuahua and Coahuila. Other names for the plant include Beaked yucca, Soyate and Palmita. Yucca thompsoniana has a trunk up to 1 m tall, branching above the ground. It flowers before there is any trunk at all, but continues to flower after the stem begins to grow. Leaves are narrow and dagger-like, a bit glaucous, up to 35 cm long and 10 mm wide. Inflorescence is a panicle about 100 cm high. Flowers are white, about 4 cm long and appear in late March through early May. Fruit is a dry, egg-shaped capsule. The plant was first collected in Chihuahua by John Bigelow in 1852 and was described by William Trelease in 1911. 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. 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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