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Unpublished names: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:
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. verdiensis, Y. 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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