4 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. LILIACES. 
Yucca, of which about eighteen species can be distinguished, is confined to the New World, where 
it ranges from Maryland, western Iowa, South Dakota, and southern California, to Lower California, 
Yucatan, and Central America, the region of its greatest development being in the territory adjacent 
to the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Twelve species’ inhabit the United States, 
eight of them assuming the habit, and attaining the size of trees, while the others are stemless. At 
least one arborescent species” is endemic in northern Mexico, one* ranges from southern Mexico to 
Guatemala; the flora of Yucatan contains another arborescent Yucca,‘ and several still little known 
species have been found in Lower California.’ The tertiary rocks of western Europe contain remains 
which indicate that Yucca is an ancient form, and that it was once more widely scattered over the 
earth’s surface than it is at present.° 
The saponaceous root-stocks of Yuccas are used by Mexicans and Indians as a substitute for soap.’ 
The fibrous wood is occasionally sawed into lumber, and has been manufactured into paper-pulp. 
The fleshy fruits of several species, which contain a large amount of sugar, are edible, and in Mexico 
are frequently made into a fermented beverage, which is occasionally distilled.* The tough fibres of 
the leaves of the Bear Grass, Yucca filamentosa, are used domestically in the United States in binding, 
and those of some of the Mexican species are made into ropes. The leaves of most of the species 
were woven into baskets by the Indians, who used them also in the manufacture of mats and whips ; 
and the tender ends of the growing stems are roasted and eaten in Mexico.” 
1 By means of the artificial fecundation of different species per- 
formed in his garden at Marseilles several years ago, Monsieur 
Deleuil secured large quantities of seed, from which he has raised 
a number of hybrid Yuceas. (See Deleuil, Rev. Hort. 1880, 225. — 
André, Rev. Hort. 1883, 109.) One of these hybrids, produced by 
crossing Yucca levigata, itself a hybrid of Yucca aloifolia and a form 
of Yucca glauca, with Yucca glauca is now cultivated in many gar- 
dens as Yucca Carrierei (André, J. c. 1895, 81, f. 21-23). 
2 Yucca filifera, Chabaud, Rev. Hort. 1876, 432, f. 97. — Car- 
riére, Rev. Hort. 1879, 262 ; 1884, 53, f. 12, 13. — Sargent, Garden 
and Forest, i. 78, f. 13, 14.— Gard. Chron. ser. 3, i. 743, £. 97, 
100. — Fenzi, Bull. Soc. Tosc. Ort. ser. 2, iv. 278, t. 9. — Baker, 
Bot. Mag. exvii. t. 7197. —Trelease, Rep. Missouri Bot. Gard. iv. 
193. 
Yucca baccata, B australis, Engelmann, Trans. St. Louis Acad. 
iii. 44 (in part) (1873). — Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xiv. 252 (in 
part). — Baker, Jour. Linn. Soc. xviii. 229 (in part). 
Yucca australis, Trelease, J. c. iii. 162 (in part), t. 3, 4 (1892) ; 
iv. 190 (in part). 
Yucca /filifera, the largest of the Yuccas now known, is a tree, 
often fifty feet in height, with a trunk frequently twenty feet tall 
and. five feet in diameter, and many wide-spreading branches, and 
is distinguishable from all other species by its pendulous panicles 
of flowers and fruit, which are often six feet in length. It forms 
open forests of great extent on the plains which rise from the lower 
Rio Grande to the Sierra Madre, and ranges southward to San 
Luis Potosi. 
of Europe, it is also occasionally cultivated in some of the Texan 
Introduced nearly forty years ago into the gardens 
towns along the Rio Grande, and in northern Mexico, where it is 
often used in the neighborhood of Monterey and Saltillo to form 
stockades. 
3 Yucca Guatemalensis, Baker, Refugium Bot. v. t. 313 (1872) ; 
Jour. Linn. Soc. 1. c. 222.— Engelmann, 1. c. 38. — Watson, 1. c. 
251. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. iii. 371. — Trelease, J. c. 162; 
iv. 184, t. 1, 2, 19. 
This arborescent much-branched species, which is little known in 
a wild state, is said to be one of the common Yuccas in the gardens 
of southern France and the Riviera, where it usually appears as 
The young stems of 
Yucca Draconis, although it is not the Linnzan plant of that name. 
(See Baker, Kew Bull. Misc. Information, January, 1892, 7.) 
* Yucca Yucatana, Engelmann, J. c. 37 (1873).— Watson, I. c. 
251. — Baker, Jour. Linn. Soc. 1. c. 222.— Hemsley, J. c. —Tre- 
lease, 1. c. 45; dl. c. 
5 Brandegee, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ii. 208, t. 11 (Pl. Baja 
Cal.) ; iii. 175. 
6 Bureau, Mém. Publiés par le Soc. Philomathique a l’ Occasion du 
Centenaire de sa Fondation, 255, t. 23 (Etudes sur la Flore Fossile 
du Calcaire Grossier Parisien). 
“ Loew, Wheeler’s Rep. iii. 609. — Palmer, Am. Nat. xii. 646. — 
Abbott, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. xvi. 254 (A Chemical Study of 
Yucca angustifolia). — Newberry, Popular Science Monthly, xxxii. 
42 (Food and Fibre Plants of the North American Indians). 
8 Havard, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xxiii. 37 (Drink Plants of the 
North American Indians). 
9 Linneus, Spec. 319 (1753).— Walter, Fl. Car. 124. — Bot. 
Mag. xxiii. t. 900. — Redouté, Liliacées, v. t. 277, 278. — Elliott, 
Sk. i. 400. — Loiseleur, Herb. Amat. iv. t. 258.— Chapman, £7. 
485. — Engelmann, J. c. 51.— Watson & Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 
6, 524. 
This stemless and very variable species inhabits sandy barren 
soil and abandoned fields in the neighborhood of the coast from 
southern Maryland southward to Florida and westward along the 
It is the best 
known of all the Yuccas in northern gardens, which it enlivens in 
southern borders of the Gulf states to Louisiana. 
midsummer with its great panicles of large ivory-white flowers. 
The tough leaves of this species are twisted and used in the 
southern states for hanging hams and for other domestic purposes. 
Attempts have been made to utilize their fibre commercially ; but, 
though it is exceedingly strong and cheaply produced, the shortness 
of Yucca-fibre lessens its value, and it has not yet been success- 
fully introduced into commerce. (See Porcher, Resources of South- 
ern Fields and Forests, 530. —C. R. Dodge, U. S. Dept. Agric. 
Fibre Investigation Rep. No. 5, 70 [A Report on the Leaf Fibres of the 
United States.) 
10 Havard, Garden and Forest, iii. 631. 
1 Bartlett, Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in 
