Yucca, Beaked

The Beaked Yucca or the Big Bend Yucca as it’s called in South Texas, is a trunk-forming variety of the yucca plant that grows into a tree. It is native to west Texas and northern Mexico (Coahuila, Chihuahua) but grows well throughout the southwest and California. This yucca tree typically grows slowly up to 15 feet tall and 6 feet wide requiring full sun. As you would expect, it requires little to moderate water and good drainage. It is a thin-leafed tree yucca with several heads of bluish to yellowish leaves that have a sharp spine tip. This yucca is cold and drought hardy.

The blue-green LEAVES radiate out from the head of the central stalk and are sharp tipped. The leaf margins are yellow and smooth. They stay on the trunk after they die, but can be removed to show the trunk.

The Beaked Yucca has 2-feet long clusters of white FLOWERS in late spring and summer.

Yucca is the Carib Indian name for cassava although the cassava is unrelated to the yucca. The Beaked Yucca gets its name from the “beak” on the FRUIT capsule which resembles the beak of a bird.