Joshua Trees and Others Yuccas February 2001
As
it turns out, the Joshua Tree IS a yucca. But it's easy to differentiate
between an ordinary yucca and a Joshua
Tree. The former has much longer spikes and also has curly, thin,
straw-colored threads between
the spikes. Check out the photo to the left, with the ordinary yucca in
the foreground.
Joshua trees typically grow in the high desert at elevations above about 3000 feet. Their blooms are voluptuous, huge clusters of small ivory-colored flowers. Like most desert plants, they bloom after the unpredictable winter rains provide adequate moisture. We saw the blooms many years ago, but I remember them still.
Joshua
Trees often grow to be fairly large, over 12 feet in height, and grouped
together they appear to be a forest strewn around the desert. Here are some trees in
perspective. Lord only knows what these bulls were doing here, or
what they were supposed to eat; it surely wasn't the Joshua trees.