Yucca baccata

Yucca vespertina

Banana Yucca, Broad-leaf Yucca, Datil Yucca, Spanish Bayonet, Spanish Dagger, Fleshy-Fruited Yucca, Amole

Agavaceae

This common yucca is native to the deserts of southwestern US and northwestern Mexico.

2-3'

2-3'

0 to 5°F; -17.7 to -14.9°C

High heat tolerance

Full sun

Very drought tolerant

Remove spent flowering spikes as desired. Divide and replant offsets if desired.

Yucca baccata makes a nice landscape border plant. It is a good plant for street medians, xeriscape and succulent gardens and can also be grown in a large container.

This plant can be grown from seed or from plantlets offset at the base.

None.

This yucca has large gray-green stout strap-like and sharply pointed leaves. The leaves are 2-3' long and have curly white fibers on their margins. Leaves grow in a spiral rosette from the base stem. Yucca baccata blooms in summer with a beautiful display of large white bell shaped flowers which hang from short branches on a central inflorescence. Individual rosettes are monocarpic and die after flowering but often offset many smaller plants at the base. Native Americans had many uses for this plant. Leaf fibers were uses to make string and ropes and woven into fabrics, garments, baskets and mats. The leaf tips were used as paint brushes for decorating pottery. From the saponin-rich roots shampoo and soap products were obtained. Today some root beers use the yucca to create a rich foamy head. The fruits, which look like short green bananas, are edible and were eaten green or stored for winter consumption. Young flower shoots were also eaten like asparagus. The wood rat also uses this plant's leaves to create the outer portion of its burrow-style nest. Like many yuccas it is pollinated by a moth which is unique to each species. Outside of its native habitat it must be hand pollinated to set seed.