Massive and thick-stemmed, the locally-named “giant dagger” is
supposedly limited in its native range in the United States to Brewster
County, Texas. A colony (_Yucca faxoniana_) resembling this species has
been reported recently in McKittrick Canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains.
An extensive forest of these spectacular plants has given the name
Dagger Flat to a broad valley in the Sierra del Carmen of Big Bend
National Park. Usually blossoming in April, the massive, white flower
clusters gracing the crowns of thousands of these majestic yuccas create
a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle. A small night-flying moth is the
yuccas’ pollenizing agent and, in return for this essential service,
lays her eggs in the plants’ ovaries where the young feed on the
developing seeds.
_Yucca carnerosana_ Lily Family
[Illustration: GIANT YUCCA]