Yucca filamentosa
Yucca filamentosa
Safety & Hazards
The roots contain saponins[ 222 Title A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants. Eastern and Central N. America. Publication Author Foster. S. & Duke. J. A. Publisher Houghton Mifflin Co. Year 1990 ISBN 0395467225 Description A concise book dealing with almost 500 species. A line drawing of each plant is included plus colour photographs of about 100 species. Very good as a field guide, it only gives brief details about the plants medicinal properties. ]. Although poisonous, saponins also have a range of medicinal applications and many saponin-rich plants are used in herbalism (particularly as emetics, expectorants and febrifuges) or as sources of raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry. Saponins are also found in a number of common foods, such as many beans. Saponins have a quite bitter flavour and are in general poorly absorbed by the human body, so most pass through without harm. They can be removed by carefully leaching in running water. Thorough cooking, and perhaps changing the cooking water once, will also normally remove most of them. However, it is not advisable to eat large quantities of raw foods that contain saponins. Saponins are much more toxic to many cold-blooded creatures, such as fish, and hunting tribes have traditionally put large quantities of them in streams, lakes etc in order to stupefy or kill the fish and make them easy to catch[ K Title Plants for a Future Author Ken Fern Description Notes from observations, tasting etc at Plants For A Future and on field trips. ].
Botanical Description
Yucca filamentosa is an evergreen shrub producing a rosette of spear-shaped leaves 50 - 75cm long and 2 - 4cm wide from a long, thick, mainly underground stem with a very short, unbranched, above-ground stem up to 50cm tall. The plant forms a cluster of rosettes plus one or more flowering stems up to 4.5 metres tall[ 270 Title Flora of N. America Publication Author Website http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/fna/ Publisher Year 0 ISBN Description An on-line version of the flora with an excellent description of the plant including a brief mention of plant uses. ]. The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a food, medicine and source of materials. The roots of Yucca species are rich in saponins and have a wide range of applications. The plant is commonly grown as an ornamental in gardens. Yucca filamentosa has a wide range, it can be abundant and even though the population is now fragmented due to the expansion of agriculture, the decline is not sufficient to place the species in a threatened category. As with all Yucca species, however, this species has a specific pollinator, the Yucca moth (Tegeticula yuccasella) which does not fly long distances. Since the subpopulations of this Yucca grow in isolated patches, genetic exchange between subpopulations is limited and therefore any habitat destruction between subpopulations could threatened the species. The plant is currently classified as 'Least Concern' in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species(2020)[ 338 Title IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Publication Author Website http://www.iucnredlist.org/ Publisher Year 0 ISBN Description A list of plants under threat and facing possible extinction, usually with brief details of the threats and information on habitat. ].