Xiphoid Yucca

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

The evergreen Yucca with its hard, xiphoid leaves has come to our homes straight from the fascinating stories about the life of the American Indians. She rarely honors her lovers with large white bells, and she doesn't even get to the fruit. For a full life, she lacks warmth, space and a moth

Change of relatives

With the evergreen tree-like plant Yucca, botanists cannot decide in any way which family it belongs to. At first he was ranked as a member of the Liliaceae family, then they decided that Yucca was closer to the Agave family, and modern scientists attributed her to the Asparagus family. Such is the wide soul of this plant.

Appearance of the genus Yucca

The genus Yucca itself has about forty species of shrubs and low trees, which are distinguished by the warlike appearance of their leaves, similar to long, stiff, prickly-pointed swords. By the way, if there are children in the house, then Yucca leaves can be dangerous, since they easily pierce an adult's finger.

Yucca's white bell-shaped flowers, collected in racemose or paniculate inflorescences, rarely appear on a plant living indoors. But, if suddenly and endows the plant with its flowers, then there is no one to pollinate them. After all, we do not have moths of this kind, the females of which flock to the scent of flowers opening at night. They collect the pollen of the plant, transferring it to the stigma of another flower, thereby pollinating it.

Plant species

The most popular are:

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Yucca elephant (Yucca elephantipes) or Guatemalan Yucca (Yucca guatemalensis) - the tops of its lignified stems are decorated with a dense crown of hard leaves. The green surface of the leaves shines with gloss. The shape of the leaves is xiphoid with a pointed end; the leaves do not have thorns. Most often chosen as a houseplant.

Sometimes the plant is shaped so that the leaves grow directly from the soil without having a woody stem. Young leaves are erect. Very rarely, at the end of summer, Yucca elephantine can delight the gardener with fragrant inflorescences collected from ivory-colored bell-shaped flowers.

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Yucca is glorious (Yucca gloriosa) - dark green linear leaves are collected in a dense rosette at the top of a lignified stem. Dense panicles of inflorescences, collected from white-cream bell-shaped flowers, reach a length of up to two meters. It grows very slowly. Inflorescences bloom in the 5-6 year of cultivation, at the end of summer.

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Yucca gray (Yucca glauca) - with characteristic linear smooth stiff leaves with a bluish tinge. Has no stem. Flowers of narrow panicle inflorescences are yellowish or greenish-white.

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Yucca filamentous (Yucca filamentosa L.) - with bluish-green sharp leaves, pubescent curly, thin, white threads. In America, Yucca is added to denim for greater durability.

Growing

Yucca elephant is very easy to grow indoors. In the summer, if possible, it can be taken out into the open air. In winter, Yucca elephant is kept at a temperature of 5 to 15 degrees Celsius. If, nevertheless, the temperature is higher, the air humidity should be increased.

There are many reviews of Yucca lovers who say that a plant (for example, Yucca is glorious) tolerates frosts down to minus 30 degrees. But more often she prefers not too low winter temperatures.

Both indoor and garden specimens prefer sunny places.

In the summer it is necessary to water often, but without creating stagnant water. In winter, water less often.

Yucca is propagated by seeds, stem offspring, by dividing the trunk into fragments (the trunk form of Yucca elephant).

As the standard specimens grow (without side shoots), the overgrown crown makes the plant unstable, therefore, an annual transplant into a larger pot is required. The transplant is carried out in March.

The plant can be affected by gray rot (when busting with watering), spider mites, worms.