LILIACE^E 



123 



high the stem simple and clothed to the ground with leaves erect until after the ap- 

 pearance of the first flowers, then spreading at right angles and finally becoming 

 reflexed. Bark I'-l^' thick, deeply divided into oblong plates frequently 2 long. 

 Wood light, soft, spongy, difficult to work, light brown or nearly white; sometimes 

 cut into thin layers and used as wrapping material or manufactured into boxes and 

 other small articles. The seeds are gathered and eaten by the Indians. 



Distribution. Southwestern Utah to the western and northern rim of the Mo- 

 have Desert in California; most abundant and of its largest size on the foothills on 

 the desert slope of the Tehachapi Mountains. 



8. yucca gloriosa, L. Spanish Dagger. 



Leaves 2-2^ long, gradually narrowed above the broad base and then gradually 

 broadened to above the middle, thin, flat or slightly concave toward the apex, 

 frequently longitudinally folded, dull often glaucous green, roughened on the under 

 surface especially above the middle, with stout dark red points, and pale margins 

 serrulate toward the base of the leaf, with minute early deciduous teeth, or occa- 

 sionally separating into thin fibres. Flowers in October, in pubescent or glabrate 

 panicles, 2-4 long, on stout stalks sometimes 3-4 in length, their large 



creamy white bracts forming before the panicle emerges a conspicuous egg-shaped 

 bud 4'-6' long; perianth when fully expanded 3'^4' across, its segments thin, ovate, 

 acute, or lance-ovate, often tinged with green or purple, slightly united at the base, 

 pubescent at the apex; stamens about as long as the ovary, with hispid or slightly 

 papillose filaments and deeply emarginate anthers; ovary slightly lobed, 6-sided, 

 light green, gradually narrowed into the elongated spreading stigmatic lobes. Fruit 

 very rarely produced, prominently 6-ridged, pendulous, 3' long, V in diameter, 

 cuspidate, raised on a short stout stipe, with a thin leathery almost black outer 

 coat; seeds \' wide and about ^' thick, with a smooth coat. 



A tree, with a trunk occasionally 6-8 high and 4'-6' in diameter, simple or 

 rarely furnished with a few short branches and usually clothed to the base with pend- 

 ant dead leaves; in cultivation often becoming much larger, with a stout trunk 

 covered with smooth light gray bark, and erect or in one form (var. recurvifolia, 

 Engelm.) pendulous leaves. 



