Distribution. Southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona across the Mohave Desert to the California coast, extending northward to the neighborhood of Monterey, California, and southward into northern Lower California; common and attaining its largest size on the Mohave Desert, and sometimes ascending arid mountain slopes to altitudes of 4000° above the sea.
5. [Yucca Schottii] Engelm. Spanish Dagger.
Leaves 2½°—3° long, about 1½′ wide, gradually narrowed upward from the comparatively thin lustrous red base to above the middle, flat except toward the apex, smooth, light yellow-green, with a long rigid sharp light red tip, and thick entire red-brown margins finally separating into short thin brittle threads. Flowers from July to September in erect stalked tomentose panicles; perianth 1′—1¾′ long, the broad oval or oblong-obovate thin segments pubescent on the outer surface toward the base and furnished at the apex with conspicuous clusters of white tomentum; stamens about two thirds as long as the ovary, with filaments pilose at the base, and only slightly enlarged at the apex. Fruit ripening in October and November, obscurely angled, 3½′—4′ long, about 1¼′ thick, often narrowed above the middle, with a stout thick point, and thin succulent flesh; seeds ¼′ wide, about ⅛′ thick, with a thin conspicuous marginal rim.
A tree, in Arizona rarely 18°—20° high, with a trunk often crooked or slightly inclining and simple or furnished with 2 or 3 short erect branches, covered below with dark brown scaly bark, roughened for many years by persistent scars of fallen leaves, and clothed above by the pendant dead leaves of many seasons.
Distribution. Dry slopes of the mountain ranges of Arizona near the Mexican boundary usually at altitudes between 5000° and 6000°, and southward into Sonora.
6. [Yucca Faxoniana] Sarg. Spanish Dagger.
Leaves 2½°—4° long, 2½′—3′ wide, abruptly contracted above the conspicuously thickened lustrous base, widest above the middle, flat on the upper surface, thickened and rounded on the lower surface toward the base, rigid, smooth and clear dark green, with a short stout dark tip, and brown entire margins breaking into numerous stout gray or brown fibres short and spreading near the apex of the leaf, longer, more remote, and forming a thick cobweb-like mass at their base. Flowers appearing in April on thin drooping pedicels, in dense many-flowered glabrous panicles 3°—4° long, with elongated pendulous branches; perianth 2½′ long, the segments thin, concave, widest above the middle, narrowed at the ends, united at base into a short tube, those of the outer rank being about half as wide as those of the inner rank and two thirds as long; stamens much shorter than the ovary, with slender filaments pilose above the middle and abruptly dilated at apex; ovary conspicuously ridged, light yellow marked with large pale raised lenticels, and gradually narrowed into an elongated slender style. Fruit ripening in early summer, slightly or not at all angled, abruptly contracted at apex into a long or short hooked beak, 3′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ thick, light orange-colored and lustrous when first ripe, becoming nearly black, with thick succulent bitter-sweet flesh; seeds ¼′ long, about ⅛′ thick, with a narrow nearly obsolete margin to the rim.
A tree, often 40° high, with a trunk sometimes 2° in diameter above the broad abruptly enlarged base, unbranched or divided into several short branches, and covered above by a thick thatch of the pendant dead leaves of many seasons; frequently smaller and until ten or twelve years old clothed from the ground with erect living leaves. Bark near the base of old trees dark reddish brown, ⅓′—½′ thick, broken on the surface into small thin loose scales.