Thompson Yucca (Yucca thompsoniana)

   

Yucca thompsoniana. Living Desert Botanical and Wildlife Park, Palm Desert, California. Photograph by Wynn Anderson.

• Common English Names: Thompson Yucca, Beaked Yucca
• Common Spanish Names: Palmita
• Scientific Name: Yucca thompsoniana
• Family: Asparagaceae (formerly Agavaceae) (Asparagus Family)
• Geographic Range: Brewster, Pecos, Terrell, Val Verde and Crockett counties in Texas, south into eastern Chihuahua and Coahuila, Mexico.
• Description: Single, erect (3 to 7'), semi-succulent trunk, sometimes multiple headed and aborescent (tree-like), with numerous rough (scabrous), narrow, semi-flexible, sharply terminated, yellowish to pale green leaves with horny, golden yellow, finely serrated margins, radiating outward to form a hemispheric crown(s). Dried leaves persist and reflex down neatly and tightly to form an attractive skirt protecting the trunk.
• Landscape Usage: Widely used as an attractive landscape accent plant across Texas, to the point of disruption of the natural communities where mature plants are being extensively harvested from the wild. Reasonably sized, seed-grown specimens are, however, commercially available.
• Note: Yucca thompsoniana is perhaps just a smaller northern and eastern variant of Yucca rostrata (Beaked Yucca), a generally taller, more robust plant with wider, longer, bluish-green (glaucous) leaves found in southern Brewster county. Closely related, the two forms easily intergraded and young plants and even populations are often difficult to satisfactorily separate. As a result, some botanists consider Yucca rostrata a synonym and merge those plants under Yucca thompsoniana.

Last Update: 25 Aug 2013