Yucca glauca

Yucca glauca from Badlands National Park in South Dakota.
photo by Mike Davy, Canada, June 1999©
 

Yucca glauca. Nuttall
In Fraser, Catalogue of New and Interesting Plants.. Fraser's Nursery, (1813); reprinted in Pittonia, 2: 119 (1890)

Common names:
Soap weed yucca
Soapwell
Bear grass
Great Plains yucca
Soap weed
Small soap weed


Yucca glauca, with fruits, Ogallala Nebraska, photo by Dixie A. Dringman, August 1998,  ©1998.

Synonyms:
Yucca angustifolia PURSH, Flora Amer. Septentrionalis, 1:227, 1813 (1814).
Yucca glauca var. mollis Engelmann ex Branner & Coville, Ann.  Rep. Geol.  Surv.  Arkansas 1888 (4):  274 (1891) syn:
Yucca angustifolia var. mollis Engelmann, Trans.  Acad.  Sci.  St.  Louis 3:  50 (1873)
Yucca arkansana Trelease, Rept.  Mo.  Bot.  Gard.  13: 63, pl.  30-31 (1902)
Yucca mollis (Engelmann) Cockerell, Nature 69: 198 (1903)
Not Yucca glauca Sims (1926)  = Yucca flaccida Haworth.

Type location: 1600 miles up Missouri River about. lat. 49. NUTTALL Herbarium, This was later deposited at the British Museum, London GB., the herbaria sheet isn't present anymore, but Fritz Hochstätter has deposited a neotype at Herbario Boise, Idaho.

Type specimen not located MCKELVEY most probably in the general region of Forth Mandran, North Dakota.

Neotype: HOCHSTAETTER, fh 1178.69, (SRP), May 1998.

Subspecies, varieties and forma:

Yucca glauca ssp. stricta
Yucca glauca ssp. albertana

Clones and Hybrids:
Yucca glauca forma rosea, Andrews, D.M. owner of Rockmont Nursery of Boulder Colorado, Catalogue Autumn 1933, Spring 1934, 25
Claude Barr did chose some cultivars, but I think they are lost for ever.
Yucca faxoniana X Yucca glauca seeds from Mesa Garden seed list 1997, #1984.3.
For my own Yucca glauca hybrids look at the hybrid page, or further down on this page.

Unpublished names:

Yucca glauca var. toftiae = Yucca angustissima ssp. toftiae
Yucca glauca x schidigera
Yucca glauca var. angustissima
Yucca glauca var. arkansana,  Mesa Garden seed list = Yucca arkansana
Yucca glauca var. baileyi,  Mesa Garden seed list = Yucca baileyi
Yucca glauca var. constricta, Mesa Garden seed list  = Yucca constricta
Yucca glauca var. elata, Mesa Garden seed list = Yucca elata
Yucca glauca var. intermedia Mesa Garden seed list = Yucca glauca x Yucca elata or Yucca baileyi ssp. intermedia? or
Yucca glauca var. kanabensis Mesa Garden seed list = Yucca angustissima var. kanabensis,
Yucca glauca var. montana
Yucca glauca var. neomexicana
Yucca glauca var. paniculata
Yucca glauca var. radiosa  Mesa Garden seed list = Yucca elata

Distribution:
Yucca glauca is the Yucca species which grow in the largest area, it can be found in 800-2600 (2800) m in the states: New Mexico, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, and even in the Southern part of Alberta Canada. In some of the places there can be winter temperatures down to - 50C.

Short description of the species:
Acaulescent or with prostate short stem; Leaves narrow linear, 30 to 70 cm long, 6 to 10 mm wide, grayish or glaucous green, with a narrow white edge, with few fibers (some forms has many fibers along the edge!) Flowers pendulous (bell shaped) greenish white (there are reports of flowers with red tinge on the petals), 6 to 7 cm long in a narrow and rarely branched 100 to 200 cm tall panicle. Seeds glossy, more than 12 mm long.

Photos:
 
Cultivated plant in Hungary. photo by Andrew Treer, Hungary ©1998 Yucca glauca from Badlands National Park in South Dakota, photo by Mike Davy, Canada, June 1999© Yucca field in the Winter 1998-99, Adams county, north of Denver Colorado.
Photo by Kevin Zawatzki ©1999
Yucca glauca, grown from seeds collected at St. Onge Peak, South Dakota. fh11778.94, s1998.
Copyrigh 2009 Elena Y.G. Jensen

Hardiness:
Yucca glauca is one of the most hardy species, and it's the species which can in nature experience the lowest temperatures during the winters, in some of the locations where it grows the temperature can go as low as -40C. In culture in Denmark where the owner of www.bennyskaktus.dk live and garden it is almost fully hardy, only a very wet winter will damage the plant. I have noticed that plant which originate from Wyoming does better than plants from other locations.

Notes:

I can't really figure the Yucca glauca complex. According to DJF almost every species in the glauca complex is geographic variants of Yucca glauca including Y. elata, Y. angustissima, Y. arkansana Y. baileyi, Y. verdiensisY. constricta, Y. intermedia, Y. campestris, Y. louisianensis, etc. I can see why he would lump them in to one huge species, most of them had leaves that looks a lot similar, but as I have seen on pictures some has racemen and others has panicles. Hochstätter recognize the above plants as either species or subspecies of other species than Yucca glauca!.

Other notes:
In July 2003 my friend Pia Larsen and I did cross pollinated Yucca glauca the following with the following species and forms:

(The number of fruits were counted on August 10th. 2003)

#1461 Yucca glauca X #818 Yucca 'Bright Edge', 3 flowers pollinated = 0 fruit (3 aborted, one of these were 11 days before it aborted!?)
#1461 Yucca glauca X #1465A Yucca filamentosa,  4 flowers pollinated = 0 fruits. (4 aborted, two of these were 11 days before they aborted!?)
#1461 Yucca glauca X #1402 Yucca filamentosa (beautiful tall form from Dr. Lorek in Germany), 4 flowers pollinated = 2 fruits, (2 aborted)
#1461 Yucca glauca X #332 Yucca filamentosa 3 flowers pollinated = 1 fruit?  (2 aborted)
#1461 Yucca glauca X #49 Yucca flaccida, 6 flowers pollinated = 1 fruits (5 aborted, four of these were 11 to 12 days before they aborted!?)
#1461 Yucca glauca X #1582 Yucca 'Ivory', 2 flowers pollinated = 0 fruit (2 aborted)
#1461 Yucca glauca X #500 Yucca sp. Hybrid?, 3 flowers pollinated = 0 fruit  (3 aborted)

We also used pollen from Yucca glauca on the following species and forms:

#818 Yucca 'Bright Edge' X #1461 Yucca glauca, 10 flowers pollinated, = 9 fruits (1 aborted)
#1465A Yucca filamentosa X #1461 Yucca glauca, 6 flowers pollinated = 5 fruits (1 aborted).
#1465B Yucca filamentosa X #1461 Yucca glauca, 2 flowers pollinated = 2 fruits.
#1402 Yucca filamentosa (beautiful tall form from Dr. Lorek in Germany) X  #1461 Yucca glauca, 8 flowers pollinated = 6 fruits! (2 aborted).
#332 Yucca filamentosa X #1461 Yucca glauca, 12 flowers pollinated = 6 fruits. (6 aborted)
#49 Yucca flaccida X #1461 Yucca glauca, 14 flowers pollinated = 11 fruits (3 aborted) This hybrid will probably be quite like a hybrid made by Graebner in 1899, which is know as Yucca 'Karlsruhensis' and was described in 1903.
#1582 Yucca 'Ivory' X #1461 Yucca glauca, 6 flowers pollinated = 2 fruits (4 aborted)
#500 Yucca sp. Hybrid? X #1461 Yucca glauca, 13 flowers pollinated = 9 fruits (4 aborted)

If  you want an update on the above hybrids look at the page about Yucca hybrids.


Fruits on Yucca glauca (BMJ #1461) Note that one of the fruits are deform, as if it didn't receive enough pollinium!!
Photo from August 18th 2003.
Copyright ©2003-2005 Benny Moeller Jensen

I look very much forward to see the outcome of all the new hybrids, but I do not expect flowers in the new hybrid until 2010 at the earliest!

More details of the Yucca hybrids made in 2003.

Reference:

BAKER, Saund. Ref. Bot. t.315
BAKER, Journ.  Linn.  Soc., Bot.  18:  227 (1880)
BRANNER & COVILLE ,  Ann.  Rep. Geol.  Surv.  Arkansas 1888 (4):  274 (1891)
COCKERELL, Nature 69: 198 (1903)
COVILLE, F. V., 1893, contrb. US Nat. Herb. 4: 202-203
ENGELMANN, in S. Watson, Botany, King Report. 496 (1871) (Yucca angustifolia)
ENGELMANN, in Trans.  Acad.  Sci.  St.  Louis 3:  50 (1873) (Yucca angustifolia)
ENGELMANN, in Rothrock Cactalogue, Botany, Wheeler Report, 6: 270 (1873) (Yucca angustifolia)
HOCHSTAETTER, F., Cactaceae-Review IRT 1 (2):  21 (1998)
HOCHSTAETTER, Navajo County Web page: Documentation of Nomenclature
HOCHSTAETTER, Sukkulenta 77 (2):74 (1998).
KUNTH, Enum. 4:274
MCKELVEY, Yuccas of the southwestern United States, vol 2: 161-169 (1947)
NUTTALL, in Fraser, Catalogue of New and Interesting Plants.. Fraser's Nursery, (1813); reprinted in Pittonia, 2: 119 (1890)
NUTTALL, Genera N. Amer. Plants, 1:218 (1818) (Yucca angustifolia)
TRELEASE in Rep. Missouri Bot. Gard. 3: 163, tt. 8, 51, 7 figs. (1892) (Yucca angustifolia)
TRELEASE in Rep. Missouri Bot. Gard. 4: 205 (1893)
TRELEASE in Rep. Missouri Bot. Gard. 13: 59, tt. 23 fig 2, 24, fig 2, 25, 83, fig 9, 93, fig. 1.(range map) (1902)
PURSH, Flora Amer.  Septentrionalis 1:  227 (1814) (Yucca angustifolia)
SIMS, in Bot. Mag. T. 2662 48:  t.222 (1821)
SIMS in Bot Mag. 48: t 2236 (1821) (Yucca angustifolia)
VOSS, Vilmorin Blumengarten (ed. 3) 1:  1057 (1895)
WOOTON & STANDLEY, in Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herb 19: 136 (1915)
www.wildlfire.org


My own plants of Yucca glauca:

There are a few links to pictures of some of the forms I grow.
#1461 Yucca glauca, old plant that I got from the late P.C.O. Nørgaard in 1999.
62     Yucca glauca Colorado Chaffee Co., 2400 m, CO, fh 1107, s1988, 70 cm long green leafs
188   Yucca glauca, Colorado Yuma Co. Sown 1991 ---  germinated 1996!!!!!, seeds from  Mesa Garden # 1985.8
735   Yucca glauca Colorado, Yuma, G, s1997 MG 1985.8
189B Yucca glauca New Mexico Colfax Co.  B1 -20C DJF947 sown 1991 MG
763   Yucca glauca Wyoming 2200 m.  G 20  s1995 NARGS 7190

This is not complete list of my Yucca glauca, if you wish to see the complete list, you will find it here: My own plants of Yucca glauca



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