Yucca schidigera grows in general as a single trunk but can be seen sometimes with clustered multiple trunks, and some are branched near the top. Y.schidigera occurs mostly in the Mohave desert in southern Nevada and some parts of Arizona and California, but is also found in Baja California, Mexico. In many places it grows side by side with Y.brevifolia and Y. baccata. The leaves are rigid and yellow-green but like more yucca species also blue-green forms of Y.schidigera exist. The plant is a real slow grower, and not easy to re establish. Like Y.brevifolia it really adapted to the extreme dry climate of the higher Mojave desert. The leaves are 40-60 cm but can occasionally be over 120 cm long, the leave width is 1.5 to 4 cm in the middle and has abundant marginal white curled filaments along the margins. The inflorescence is entirely within the leaves and often half of the panicle is visible above the leaves. The flowers are creamy white but in the budding phase they have a kind of purple colour, as certain Y.thompsoniana have too. It is cold resistant to -15°C in wet climates like in most of Europe but can take a few degrees more in drier climates.

Like all yucca's they like sun and a well drained soil, in wet climates it is better to remove the panicle after a few weeks, as the flowers fall down in the crown and start rotting. The yucca is most vulnerable after flowering as the stalk leaves a hole through which rain water enters the hart which could lead to rot. When the old flower stalk has rotted away, it is better to seal the hole with cement; the new growing spears will push it aside.

In our webshop we have this yucca for sale.

Authors drs C.N. Klijn and R.H. Smeets from Tropical Centre have studied yuccas in the wild and also then thousands of import yucca plants from everywhere in Mexico and the USA. Learn more about yuccas and our yucca background through the website buttons about us, photo-albums and newsletters. If you mention us, as the source you may use our descriptions and pictures.