Yucca flaccida Haw.

Weak Leaf Yucca; Flaccid Leaf Yucca

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Perennial

Vascular

Weak Leaf Yucca is a native perennial in the Century-Plant family (Agavaceae). It can be found throughout most of Alabama. Weak Leaf Yucca occurs in sandy pine woodlands, on river banks and sand bars, in pastures and abandoned fields, and along roadsides. Plants are cespitose and acaulescent. Offsets are often produced from the roots, forming small clumps. Leaves are sessile with over-lapping bases, lanceolate in outline, widest near the middle, leathery in texture, glabrous, evergreen, and tapering to a spine-like tip. Leaves become reflexed at the middle with age, and have elongated curling fibers along their margins. Flowers are produced in a terminal pubescent panicle. Individual flowers are pendant, and consist of 6 white or greenish-white tepals. The fruit is an erect leathery capsule with many flat, papery, black seed. Weak Leaf Yucca is available from nurseries and can also be grown from offsets. It prefers a well-draining soil in full sun. It is drought tolerant and free of most pests and diseases. Yucca is pollinated by Yucca Moths (Family Prodoxidae), whose larvae feed on developing seed. Weak Leaf Yucca is sometimes treated as a variety of Bear Grass (Yucca filamentosa Linnaeus). Bear Grass differs in having thicker, erect leaves and glabrous inflorescence branches.—A. Diamond

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Native

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