Yucca gloriosa
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
Spanish dagger, palm lily, mound-lily yucca
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Herbs - Monocots
Flower colours
Violet/Purple, White
Detailed description
An erect evergreen shrub with swordlike leaves about 5 cm wide and 0.6-0.9 m long originating from a basal rosette. The leaves are bluish or grayish green with smooth margins and pointed tips. They tend to bend near the middle and arch downward. In summer mound-lily yucca puts up a showy 6-8 ft (1.8-2.4 m) spike of fragrant flowers that are white with purplish tinges, pendant and about 7.6 cm across. Mound-lily yucca stays in a stemless rounded clump 2-5 ft (0.6-1.5 m) across and about the same height for several years, but eventually develops a trunk or stem which elevates that clump of leaves above the ground as much as 1.8-2.4 m. In older plants the stem develops branches and each terminus has its own rosette of leaves.
Similar taxa
The cultivar, Nobilis has dark green leaves and Variegata has leaves with yellow margins.
Habitat
Occur naturally on coastal dunes and shell mounds near the Atlantic, from North Carolina to north-east Florida.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Asparagaceae
Ecology
Flowering
Summer
Year naturalised
1970
Origin
N. America
Propagation technique
Seed and stem and root fragments.
Other information
Etymology
yucca: An name derived from a language in the Carib group, denoting another plant and mistakenly applied to this taxa.
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.