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Products > Hesperoyucca whipplei [Yucca]   Hesperoyucca whipplei [Yucca] - Our Lord's Candle     [2nd Image] Habit and Cultural Information Category: Succulent Family: Agavaceae (now Asparagaceae) Origin: California (U.S.A.) Evergreen: Yes Flower Color: Creamy White Bloomtime: Spring/Summer Synonyms: [Yucca whipplei] Height: 2-3 feet Width: 3-4 feet Exposure: Full Sun Summer Dry: Yes Deer Tolerant: Yes Irrigation (H2O Info): Low Water Needs Winter Hardiness: 10-15° F Hesperoyucca whipplei [Yucca] (Our Lord's Candle) - This is a dense rosette-forming plant to 2 feet tall and 4 feet across with rigid, gray-green leaves that are margined yellow or brown with a very sharp tip. In the mid-spring into summer, mature plants produce clusters of bell-shaped creamy white flowers, sometimes tinged with purple, drooping on branched spikes. The blooms are fragrant. After blooming the plant will die, but it sometimes is replaced by numerous offsets (ssp. caespitosa). This plant has an incredible native range from the coastal area of San Francisco south into Baja California and east into the southern Sierra Nevada range and Mount San Jacinto. There is even one subspecies in the inner Grand Canyon in Arizona. This plant long called Yucca whilpplei is now considered to be Hesperoyucca whipple. The reasons as listed in the Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Monocotyledons edited by Urs Eggli (2001) are: Hesperoyucca differs clearly from Yucca in that it forms a definite bulb in the seedling stage (absent in Yucca but further study necessary), has a capitate stigma (6 lobed in Yucca), fruit is strictly loculicidally dehiscent (Yucca indehiscent or septicidal or septicidal and loculicidal), filaments basally attached to tepals and w/o apical thickening (Yucca has filaments not attached to tepals but held close to the ovary and bent outwards near the swollen apex), the often very large inflorescence of Hesperoyucca by far exceed the inflorescence size of Yucca and unbranched plants (ssp. whipplei) are monocarpic while branched plants (ssp. caespitosa) develop new rosettes from the leaf axils (both traits unknown in Yucca).  This information is based on research conducted about this plant in our nursery library and from reliable online sources. We also take into consideration observations of it in our nursery of crops, as well as of plants growing in the nursery's garden and those in other gardens we have visited. We will incorporate comments received from others and welcome getting feedback from anyone who may have additional information, particularly if it includes cultural information that would aid others in growing Hesperoyucca whipplei [Yucca].     [MORE INFO]