Common Name: CENTURY PLANT FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, shrub, tree, fibrous succulent or not, from bulbs or rhizomes. Stem: above ground or not, branched or not. Leaf: simple, deciduous or not, basal or in terminal rosettes, generally sessile, linear, lanceolate, oblanceolate or ovate, fibrous or not, thin and flexible or thick and rigid or succulent; margin entire, fine-serrate, dentate, or with filaments, tips rigid or flexible, with a spine or not. Flower: bisexual; perianth parts 6, in 2 petal-like whorls, free or +- fused; stamens 6, +- fused to perianth, filaments often wide, succulent; ovary superior or inferior, chambers 3, style 1 (thick, poorly defined), stigma head-like or 3-lobed. Fruit: capsule, indehiscent, loculicidal, or septicidal. Seed: few to many, +- flat or ovoid, generally black.
Genera In Family: 24 genera, 637 species: worldwide.
eFlora Treatment Author: Dale W. McNeal, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Dale W. McNeal, Thomas J. Rosatti, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: QUIXOTE PLANT, CHAPARRAL YUCCA
Habit: Shrub-like, dying after fruiting or not; rosettes >=1, clumped or not. Leaf: linear to narrow-lanceolate, thick, +- rigid, glaucous, spine-tipped, margins +- yellow, fine-toothed. Inflorescence: scapose, panicle, cylindric, glabrous, exceeding rosettes; peduncle generally > 2.5 cm wide; bracts generally reflexed. Flower: bisexual; perianth bell-shaped or spheric, parts free, wide-lanceolate, white to +- green or purple-tinged; stamens thick, generally > pistil; ovary superior, stigma head-like. Fruit: erect, obovoid, loculicidal. Seed: many per chamber, 6--9 mm diam, thin, flat, dull black. Chromosomes: x=30.
Etymology: (Greek: hesperos (western), yucca)
eFlora Treatment Author: William J. Hess
Unabridged Reference: Baker 1892 Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1892:8