Adam's Needle

Adam's Needle Growing Conditions

Late spring is the best season for planting yucca. In this season it will grow rapidly and get well settled before winter. You can plant yucca by cuttings or by seeds. Generally cutting is used for propagation because seeds take a very long time for germination. Yucca filamentosa is one of the most drought tolerant species and once establishing capable of surviving. For a new cutting, you must allow it to dry for a few days and plant this cutting in coarse soil. Yucca is a slow growing plant and it will take few days to make roots and new rosettes. Presoaking of the seeds for 20 hours in warm water may reduce the germination time. After germination plant seeds in part sun. Formation of seeds depends on moth pollination / hand pollination.

Special Features - Pollination

It is an obligate pollination mutualism between yucca and female moth. First of all, female moth lays eggs in flower's ovaries and inserts a ball of pollen grain in stigma, which she has collected from different yucca flowers. Fertilization takes place and seed formation occurs within flower's ovaries. At the same time eggs hatch and young larvae feed on seeds. In some areas like Britain hand pollination is must to obtain seeds because yucca moth does not survive due to environmental conditions.

Planting Adam's Needle

Always add little water to new planted yucca. Beds must be raised and consist of grained sand, small gravel or granite chips, such as chicken grit, which will keep dry the root neck and bottom of the stem. Sand should contains a little yellow clay for clumping. Rhizome is underground and very near to surface. You must plant yucca in environment where one can't compress the rhizomes.

Uses of Adam's Needle

• Yucca is an attracting plant. It looks beautiful in gardens, borders, parking areas and as an accent among perennial trees.
• Flowers will not remain for a long time but foliage will be evergreen.
• Leaves and roots are very useful, as they contain saponins. They are steroids and used as a medicine for inflammation, blood purification and pain relieving for joint pains. Saponin has detergent qualities and used to make soap and shampoos.
• Fiber is obtained from yucca leaves and used to make rope, baskets and mats.

Adam's Needle Pictures

Yucca flower

yucca mature

Yucca baccata Torr. banana yucca

Yucca baccata Torr. var. brevifolia (Schott ex Torr.) L. Benson & Darrow Spanish dagger

Yucca brevifolia Engelm. Joshua tree

Related Flowers

Yucca Angustifolia

Yucca Angustifolia - The smallest of all the Yuccas. When in flower it is not more than 3 feet high. Its long strips of leaves are nearly 1 1/2 feet in length, but are not more than 1/4 inch in width. They are thick and rigid, of a pale sea-green color, and fringed with white filaments. The plant bears a simple raceme of white flowers slightly tinged with yellow. Till it is more plentiful it should be grown in warm borders, in well-drained sandy loam. N. America.

Yucca Canaliculata

Yucca Canaliculata - The leaves are entire—i.e., neither toothed nor filamentose at the margin, and form a dense rosette on a stem 1 or 2 feet high. Each leaf is 20 to 24 inches long, and 2 to 2 1/4 inches broad at the middle, strong, rigid, and deeply concave. The flowers are creamy white and borne in a large panicle 4 or 5 feet high. It is well suited for isolation or groups, but till more plentiful should be encouraged in favourable positions and on warm soils. Mexico.

Yucca Filamentosa

Yucca Filamentosa - Has apple-green leaves and a much-branched panicle, 4 to 6 feet high. It varies very much when raised from seed. One variety (concava) has short, strong, broad leaves, which are more concave than those of the type; another variety (maxima) has narrow leaves which, though nearly 2 feet long, are only 2 1/2 inches broad. N. America.

Yucca Flaccida

Yucca Flaccida - A stemless species, some-what resembling the last but smaller, with a downy branching panicle, 3 or 4 feet high, and close rosettes of leaves 18 to 24 inches long, and about 1 1/2 inches broad at the middle. They are often fringed with filaments, the young ones nearly erect, and the old ones so abruptly reflexed in the middle as to appear almost broken. N. America.

Yucca Glaucescens

Yucca Glaucescens - A free-flowering kind, with a panicle 3 or 4 feet high, and sea-green leaves, about 18 inches long, with a few filaments on the margins. The flowers are greenish-yellow, when in bud tinged with pink, which gives the whole inflorescence a peculiarly pleasing tone. It is very useful for groups, borders, isolation, or for placing among low shrubs. There is a pretty form with a broad band of pale yellow down the middle of the leaf. N. America.

Yucca Gloriosa

Yucca Gloriosa - A large and imposing Yucca of distinct habit and somewhat rigid aspect. Its flower-stem is over 7 feet high, much branched, and bears an immense pyramidal panicle of large almost white flowers. Its numerous leaves are stiff and pointed. It is one of the noblest plants in our gardens, suitable for almost any position. In many gardens of proved hardiness. N. America.

Yucca Pendula

Yucca Pendula - The leaves of this, at first erect and of a sea-green color, after-wards become reflexed and deep green. Old established plants standing alone on the grass are pictures of grace and symmetry, from the lower leaves which sweep the ground to the central ones that point up as straight as a needle. There is no plant more suited for grouping near flower-beds or for associating with them. N. America. Syn., Y. recurva.

Yucca Treculeana

Yucca Treculeana - This species is one of the most remarkable, both from its habit and from the dimensions of its leaves. Like many Yuccas of its family, young specimens of Y. Treculeana differ considerably from those which have reached maturity. Thus, while the leaves of young specimens are bent, and generally inflected, those of mature specimens are erect, rigid, long, and straight. The stem of the plant is about 10 inches in diameter, and furnished on all sides with leaves about 4 feet long, straight, thick, and deeply channelled, very finely toothed on the edges, ending in a stiff, sharp point. If placed singly it is excellent for banks and knolls, and is also suitable for the boldest groups. Texas.