Red Yuccas
Well, I'm learning. This is all new to me.
The plants that I thought were desert sotol, or dasylirions, are actually hesperaloe, or red yuccas. I've been going to classes at the Santa Fe botanical garden and I've been doing more research on my own, and I'm getting more familiar with what's typically in gardens around here. It turns out I mis-identified some plants.
There are more than a half dozen identical spiky leaved plants scattered about the front yard. Three are planted along the rock drainage path, a few are just out in the gravel randomly, and two sit side by side in a corner garden by the front walk.
When we first moved here in late summer, each stand of spiky foliage sported a great long stalk of red flowers. The form and leaf shape and the single tall flower spike led me to think these were dasylirions. But they are not. They are Texas red yuccas.
Hesperaloe parviflora - red yuccas -- are not true yuccas. They have thin grasslike foliage, not the stiff yucca swords, and they typically have lots of graceful flower spikes rising well above the clump. The ones here each just had a single tall wand, arching over. A couple plants had two.
I'm not sure why all the plants here were flowering singly. They may get too much shade from the pines in the front yard, and that may be the reason their flowering does not look like the pictures I've seen, which look like this:
So, with little in the way of flowering, I had decided these were dasylirions, a desert plant that has a similar shape and foliage and sends up a single big flower cane.
But the threadlike hairs decorating the leaves are distinctive to hesperaloes, and when I look up close, my plants have these curly white threads.
And the red flowers, as few of them as there were, definitely looked like the pictures I've seen of hesperaloes. On top of that, the nurseries in town commonly sell this plant everywhere.
Yep, that's what is planted all over the front yard here. Hesperaloe parviflora, Texas Red yuccas, not dasylirions. I stand corrected.
Does it matter what these plants really are? Well, not to you, dear readers of this blog, I know. But it matters to me and I'm loving the research and discovery process. It's like a puzzle, and I'm having fun getting the pieces to fit.
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| Summer 2017, when we first moved in |
The plants that I thought were desert sotol, or dasylirions, are actually hesperaloe, or red yuccas. I've been going to classes at the Santa Fe botanical garden and I've been doing more research on my own, and I'm getting more familiar with what's typically in gardens around here. It turns out I mis-identified some plants.
There are more than a half dozen identical spiky leaved plants scattered about the front yard. Three are planted along the rock drainage path, a few are just out in the gravel randomly, and two sit side by side in a corner garden by the front walk.
 |
| These two hesperaloes are much smaller, perhaps still young? |
When we first moved here in late summer, each stand of spiky foliage sported a great long stalk of red flowers. The form and leaf shape and the single tall flower spike led me to think these were dasylirions. But they are not. They are Texas red yuccas.
Hesperaloe parviflora - red yuccas -- are not true yuccas. They have thin grasslike foliage, not the stiff yucca swords, and they typically have lots of graceful flower spikes rising well above the clump. The ones here each just had a single tall wand, arching over. A couple plants had two.
 |
| One giant arching flower stalk |
I'm not sure why all the plants here were flowering singly. They may get too much shade from the pines in the front yard, and that may be the reason their flowering does not look like the pictures I've seen, which look like this:
 |
| Texas Red Yuccas - typical flowering Hmmm, not like mine |
But the threadlike hairs decorating the leaves are distinctive to hesperaloes, and when I look up close, my plants have these curly white threads.
And the red flowers, as few of them as there were, definitely looked like the pictures I've seen of hesperaloes. On top of that, the nurseries in town commonly sell this plant everywhere.
Yep, that's what is planted all over the front yard here. Hesperaloe parviflora, Texas Red yuccas, not dasylirions. I stand corrected.
Does it matter what these plants really are? Well, not to you, dear readers of this blog, I know. But it matters to me and I'm loving the research and discovery process. It's like a puzzle, and I'm having fun getting the pieces to fit.
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Karen