The engraving with which, through the kindness of Mr. Vick, of
Rochester, N. Y., we are enabled to embellish this page, is an excellent
representation of a very interesting and beautiful plant, which is
sufficiently hardy to endure our northern climate in some parts of
Ontario without any protection, and in others with the aid of the
shelter of a few evergreen boughs thrown over it during the winter.
[Illustration: Yucca Plant.]
There are not many things of such a tropical aspect that can be grown in
our climate, indeed we cannot now recall another that so much resembles
the Aloes and Century-plants of more southern latitudes. The leaves are
armed at their points with a strong sharp spine, while from their edges
float slender, light-gray filaments or threads, so that it did not
require a very imaginative temperament to see in the spine the needle,
and in the filaments the thread, wherewith Adam and Eve sewed together
their fig leaf aprons. It is a perennial plant and ever green,
contrasting strangely with our winter snows, in truth so strangely that
it seems like a migratory creature that has failed to wing its way to
sunnier lands, when all its mates departed.
Its strong branching flower-stalk, laden with its beautiful
flower-bells, is well shewn in the engraving, while the single flower in
the corner gives an idea of the form and size of each flower. This stalk
rises to the height of about five feet, forming near the top numerous
branches, all of which are completely covered with blossoms. These are
of a delicate creamy white, slightly tinged—as seen in the glare of
sun-light—with green; but in the moon-light look like frosted silver.
It must be seen in the moon-light to be seen in its beauty; then the
plant looks stately, and the silver bells glisten and shine in the soft
rays of the moon with a most bewitching loveliness. Yet it is not true
that it blooms only at the full of the moon. It is too bad to break the
charm that Margaret Fuller has thrown over this flower, holding it
spell-bound by the moon, unable or unwilling to open its flowers until
she shines forth upon it in full orbed brightness; yet we have seen a
bed of them that bloomed and faded before the moon came to the full,
only here and there a flower upon the almost naked stalks to reflect her
light; yet it is none the less true that its beauty can be seen in its
perfection only if it be in full bloom when the moon is at the full,
shining upon it from a cloudless sky, in the soft air of a July night.
One stands and looks at it with wondering eye, amazed at the purity of
its whiteness, as though some fairy’s wand had touched it since the
evening hour, transforming its greenish petals to a frost-work of
silver, and turning its dull grey filaments into silver threads.
This plant thrives best in a rich sandy soil, and if planted in a bed
large enough to hold half a dozen plants two feet apart each way, and
allowed to remain without being disturbed, the plants will increase in
size and strength, flowering more and more abundantly. A bed planted
with ten of them for four years, produced fifteen flower stems, fully
six feet high, upon which the flowers could be numbered by thousands. We
hope many of our readers will plant a bed of them, and enjoy the
pleasure they will most assuredly give.
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