THE 



Canadian Horticulturist 



THE YUCCA. 



UR readers will, we are sure, appreciate our efforts in 

 endeavouring to place before them hardy varieties of trees 

 and shrubs suitable to our Canadian climate, and in 

 warning them against planting tender kinds, which, after 

 careful nursing, must sooner or later succumb to our cold 

 winters. The Yucca is a tropical plant, a native of the 

 Southern United States and Mexico. It belongs to the 

 botanical order Liliaceae, and is commonly known under 

 various names, as " Adam's Needle," " Bear's Grass," 

 " Spanish Bayonet," etc. The plant presents a very 

 striking appearance ; its leaves are like bayonets and are twelve to fifteen inches 

 in length ; its flowers are creamy-white, and grow in great clusters. One 

 traveller in California states that he there discovered a specimen which carried 

 one thousand four hundred to one thousand five hundred blossoms to each 

 flowering stem. 



There are over a dozen varieties known to botanists, some of which have a 

 very sweet perfume and are very beautiful. Yucca baccata, for instance, a 

 native of Mexico and Colorado, has flowers from two to three feet in length, 

 and inflorescence from five to six feet. The (fruit of this variety is fleshy, and 

 is eaten by the Indians as we do bananas, which it somewhat resembles in flavor. 



