Yucca

Yucca bailey i Wooton and Standley The genus Yucca belongs to the Lily Family and contains many species native in North and Central America. The roots, when rubbed in water, give a thick suds, and they are often used as a substitute for soap in washing clothes, especially by the native people of the South- west. The Amole, as the root is called by the Mexicans, is very effi- cacious in cleaning fabrics, or when used in bathing or as a shampoo, leaving the skin smooth and the hair soft and glossy. The names soap- root and Spanish dagger or Spanish bayonet are applied to the yuc- cas in the United States. When driving in June from Gallup, New Mexico, to Zufii, I found this beautiful yucca coming into bloom in many places along the edge of the sparse pinyon or nut pine forests. The sturdy spikes of large, pale green flowers, tinged on the sepals with purple, grew from two to three feet in height. They rose from a bristling clump of relatively short, narrow, sharp-pointed