Yucca

yuk'ka, plants of the lily family native to the arid region of the United States and Mexico. There are twenty varieties. The chief species goes by a number of common names as Adam's needle, bear grass, silk grass, and thready yucca. This yucca has long, narrow, spiny, pointed leaves growing in a tuft from which one or more erect flower stalks rise, each carrying a fine panicle of usually creamy flowers. Whipple's Yucca is a magnificent flowering plant in south California. The tree yucca attains a height of fifteen to twenty feet in the Mojave region. Another kind is known as Spanish bayonet. It has a shocky head of bayonet-shaped leaves on the summit of a palm-like trunk. The leaves of all species are more or less valuable for fiber. The family is almost as interesting as the cactus family.