BOTANICAL. INDEX. 
«» 
Fig. 212. Yucca Grove in Southern 
Utah. 
ous limbs giving terminal masses of cream-colored bloom, sometimes weighing 15 
20 pounds; the seed formed in a dry capsule, fruit size of a peach. “This fruit, in 
northern Mexico and Arizona, is called sotol, and is used quite extensively as an 
article of food.” The tree-like body of the plant, which is often 20 to 24 inches in 
diameter, and is composed of a thin, gauzy network of 
• • tough filament, valuable as a paper material. The tree 
21 and branches are covered with a rough and ragged coat 
■H of persistent, recurved and imbricated remains of for- 
mer leaves, giving the tree an exceedingly ugly ap- 
g=2i pearance, especially when growing in immense forests 
y on the desert plateaus, with very little other vegetation 
near them. “The trunks have been used in Mexico as 
palisades in the construction of stockades.” [Dr. En- 
gelmann in Mexican Boundary Survey.] 
Another very interesting species is Yucca angusti- 
folia, the true Spanish Bayonet of frontiersmen, which 
takes the place, in general form and appearance at 
least, west of the Mississippi river, of your common 
eastern species, Yucca filimentosa, which is found from 
the Mississippi river east, usually in such poor ground. 
One form, we are told by Dr. Engelman, has a large 
geographical range, reaching from Southern Utah to Central America, and it also 
assumes quite a variety of forms, but he says “they are always easily recognized by 
their never constricted obtuse capsules (fruit), and the large broad-margined seed, 
nearly one-fourth of an inch broad. The true Yucca angusti/olia is a low-growing or 
stemless species with leaves from 12 to 
15 inches long and frofn \y to 2% inch- 
es wide, all growing from a common 
center, and pointing every conceivable 
direction, so as to form a pyramid that 
bids defiance to man or beast. We 
have a dwarf variety found near here 
and said to be peculiar to this locality, 
that has leaves only about 2 lines, or 
about 2-6 of an inch wide. Two other 
varieties of Yucca angusti/olia, which 
Dr. Engelmann lias named Var. Elata, 
from Arizona, grows several feet high, 
and Var. Badiosa, also grows several 
feet high. The leaves are linear, still', 
and ends with a sharp pointed spine. 
Along the margin of each leaf is a 
narrow white line, and like your east- 
ern species also there are fine thread- 
like fibers from 2 to 2% inches long, 
constantly separating from the leaf 
and hanging to the margin by one 
end. The flowers are a greenish white 
and produced on stems about 4 or 5 
feet high, while the fleshy edible fruit 
is often 3 inches long and an inch 
across. The leaves are thick, stout, 
about 3y inches long and y, an inch 
broad, and not narrowed above the 
base as in most other species, but grad- 
ually narrowing down to a sharp spike- 
like point. It is margined its entire 
length with sharp serrated edges, and 
are thickly set in a crowded bunch at 
the ends of the branches, they are Fig. 213 . Yucca Brevtfoiia. 
also fibrous and from the edges are a 
few thread-like filiaments hanging, the whole of which is also a valuable paper 
material. 
Among the other species of Yucca peculiar to this region and also of some econ- 
omic value to the residents (more especially the natives), is Yucca baccata, a robust- 
o-rowing. stemless, yet rather insignificant-looking species, with stiff and coarse 
feaves nearly 3 feet long and 2 inches wide, also margined with a few coarse threads 
or filaments and terminated with a sharp spine. The flowers are the largest of all 
