I’ve always been intrigued by “desert” plants that grow well here in the Midwest. A good example of this is the Eastern prickly pear- a Midwest native cactus.

But some plants travel here from other parts of the US and naturalize over time.

That is basically what happened with yucca (not to be confused with yuca aka cassava).

Scientific Name: Yucca filamentosa

Preferred Habitat: Sandy/dry places, gravel, and depleted soils. Yucca generally needs a lot of sun and thrives in areas with very few competing taller plants (grasslands and dunes are great spots to look!)

Usable Parts: The root for soap (more below), the leaves for fiber (cordage and weaving), the flowers are edible, the stalks in some species are also eaten.

Distribution: Common yucca is found all over the Eastern US and in parts of the Pacific-Northwest. There are several other species of yucca that grow in the western states that often have a longer history of use than the common yucca (especially in the Southwestern region).

Harvest Season: The roots can be harvested any time of year if the ground isn’t frozen, and the rest of the plant can be harvested as long as it is above ground (sometimes ice and snow will decompose it too much to use).

Key Identifiers: Large clusters of agave-like leaves, tall stalks that look like asparagus before they bloom, and are later covered in white cup-shaped flowers.

Toxic Look-Alikes: In the Midwest, the only potential look-alikes are irises. These plants can resemble yucca slightly when young, but the flower stalk on yucca is a pretty obvious sign that you don’t have iris.

Beyond that I could see someone getting daylily confused with yucca if they didn’t know what they were looking at, but daylily is edible and can only sometimes cause a stomach upset. The leaves tend to be much narrower and less rigid as well.

Health Benefits:

The plant contains a few medicinal properties:

The plant is mainly medicinal in nature which kind of limits the uses to things like:

Soap, shampoo, salves, tinctures, and other similar medicine forms.

To make soap, it’s as simple as: clean, peel and mash the roots, mix the resulting mush in water and agitate it to get nice and bubbly. That infusion is your shampoo/body wash.

The other major use is as a fiber. The leaves make a good cordage (I have woven them into cordage before, I can verify that it’s pretty nice for that) which in turn is good for basketry.

Maybe there are currently a lot of people using yucca for weaving, however I rarely see people talking about it compared to other natural fibers. This is something I’d like to experiment with more since I’m pretty knew to weaving.

The plant is related to agave (same subfamily) and is in the asparagus family.

Yucca is drought tolerant and is naturally a desert plant.

That said, I see it all over the place due to horticulture enthusiasts putting it in landscapes where it will sometimes escape.

I don’t think it’s anywhere near the point where it would be considered “naturalized” or “invasive” yet, but it is usually pretty easy to find a lot of in this part of Michigan (it grows in the gravel lot where I work).

The thing I appreciate about yucca is that it is a great plant for marginal and depleted soils or places like the lakeshore where you mostly have sand.

The plant also grows in clumps. At the base of each clump you will often find dead leaves laying on the ground similar to a daylily.

I’m sure a basketry expert could give you a better opinion, but I like to use those dead leaves for weaving.

The plant should be at least close to 3-4 years old ideally to harvest the root from if you want a good sized root. Anything younger will often be small and not necessarily as easy to process.

Yucca lives anywhere from 15-20 or more years, and produces a continuous cycle of rosettes that form a flower stalk. Once a rosette blooms, it is done forever and a new rosette next to it will flower the following year.

Yucca also prefers full sun and likes well-drained sandy soils (or at least nothing too rich in nutrition).

The clumps can also be propagated easily by division.

The tips of the leaves are very sharp when mature earning this plant the nickname “Adam’s Needle”. The leaf tips are sometimes pulled off with a little bit of fiber attached and used as a makeshift needle and thread.

When it comes to soap, the Walapai tribal mothers traditionally washed their newborns in yucca suds every day for the first week of birth since it is so gentle and good for skin health.

The plant was first spread from other parts of the US as an ornamental since it handled cold climates surprisingly well for being a desert plant. That said, while it is not native to Michigan, it is native to the US.

There are at least a couple cultivars I could find:

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