Yucca

Yucca is a genus of about fifty perennial species native to North America, from Panama north into Canada, classed in the asparagus family alongside the agaves. Its plants range from small shrubs to tree-like forms, with stiff, sword-shaped, often spine-tipped leaves gathered in rosettes and tall stalks of white, bell-like flowers. Each species depends on yucca moths, which pollinate the flowers and lay their eggs in the seed capsules, a well-known case of mutual dependence. For the Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest and Mexico it has been one of the most useful wild plants: its fibres made sandals, rope, baskets, nets and mats, its roots a soap, and its stalks and flowers food. Kynes records that the Navajo washed with the root soap for ceremonial purification, that the Tewa used banana yucca in naming ceremonies, and that parts of the plant were offered to deities. The flower is the state flower of New Mexico and, as flor de izote, the national flower of El Salvador. Cunningham gives it to Mars and fire, for protection, purification and transmutation, describing a cross of twisted fibres laid on the hearth to guard the house; Kynes adds earth and Pluto, and the root in spells to purify ritual space.