Yucca schidigera

What to Eat

Edible parts: Flowers, Fruit, Stem

Young flowering stems are chopped and cooked like asparagus or baked like a sweet potato. The fruit can be eaten raw or cooked; it is also baked, dried and ground into a powder for use in soups or made into a drink, and can be used to make jellies. Flowers are delicious raw, can be dried and crushed as a flavouring, and can also be used in jellies.

Known Hazards

Where to Find It

It is a warm temperate to subtropical plant. It suits hardiness zones 8-10.

Australia, Mexico, North America, USA,

How to Identify

A small tree. It grows 4.5 m high and spreads 2.4 m wide. It has a thick often branched trunk. The leaves are smooth and have thick edges which carry fine threads. The flower spike is 1.2 m high. The flowers are waxy cream.

How to Grow

Thrives in any soil but prefers a sandy loam and full exposure to the south. Plants are hardier when grown on poor sandy soils. Established plants are very drought tolerant. In the plants native environment, its flowers can only be pollinated by a certain species of moth. This moth cannot live in Britain and, if fruit and seed is required, hand pollination is necessary. This can be quite easily and successfully done using something like a small paint brush. Individual crowns are monocarpic, dying after flowering. However, the crown will usually produce a number of sideshoots before it dies and these will grow on to flower in later years. Plants in this genus are notably resistant to honey fungus. Members of this genus seem to be immune to the predations of rabbits.

Propagation: Sow seed in spring in a greenhouse; pre-soaking for 24 hours in warm water may reduce germination time. Seed typically germinates within 1–12 months at 20°C. Prick seedlings into individual pots and grow on under glass for at least their first two winters. Plant out in early summer with winter protection — a pane of glass usually suffices — for at least the first outdoor winter. In Britain, seed is only set with hand pollination. For root cuttings, lift in April/May, remove small buds from the base of stem and rhizomes, dip in dry wood ash to prevent bleeding, and pot in sandy soil in a greenhouse until established.

Medicinal Uses

None known.

Other Uses

The leaves and their fibre have been used to make ropes, baskets and mats, and the strong fibres have been made into shoes and sandals. The leaves have also been used as brushes for body painting and for decorating pottery. The roots are rich in saponins and can be used as a soap substitute.

Yucca schidigera, also known as the Mojave yucca or Spanish dagger, is a perennial plant in the asparagus family Asparagaceae, native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It is most common in the Mojave Desert, but also occurs extensively in the Sonoran Desert and west to the Pacific coast of southern California and Baja California.

Notes

There are about 40 Yucca species. Also put in the family Agavaceae.

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