JOURNAL 
OF THE 
Royal Horticultural Society. 
Vol. XLVII. Parts 2 and 3, 1922. 
YUCCAS FOR ENGLISH GARDENS. 
By E. A. Bowles, M.A., F.L.S., V.M.H. 
The fruiting of Yucca Whipplei (fig. 23) in the open air in Sussex is one 
of the outstanding events of the remarkably dry summer of 192 1. 
It is not the first time it has flowered in the open in that county. 
An excellent photograph was published in the Gardeners' Chronicle 
for February 17, 1912, of a plant flowering in Mr. Fletcher's 
wonderful garden at Aldwick Manor, Bognor, in 19 10, after growing 
in the open for- some six years or more. It has also flowered in 
Messrs. R. Veitch & Sons' nursery at Exeter; but a plant that grew 
to a large size on the rock garden here, near Waltham Cross, Herts, 
failed to produce the flower-spike, rotting off in the heart after a 
severe winter when the thickening of the centre was giving promise of 
the coming flowering. 
There have been but few records of any Yuccas bearing fruit 
in England. Canon Ellacombe reported the formation of pods on 
Y. recurvifolia more than once, but, except in the year 1876, no seeds 
*were formed. 
The pollination of most of the species of Yucca is entirely de- 
pendent on the visits of a genus of small moths specially adapted to 
roll up pellets of the pollen and deposit them in the stigmatic tube of 
the flowers. To obtain a return for this service the female moth 
inserts her remarkably lengthy ovipositor into the young ovary, 
placing a few eggs among the seeds which will result from 
VOL. XLVII. ^^w^ ^ 
f DEC 6 W2 
