Joshua tree (Yucca baccata brevifolia)
Description
Yucca brevifolia is a plant species belonging to the genus Yucca. It is tree-like in habit, which is reflected in its common names: Joshua tree, yucca palm, tree yucca, and palm tree yucca. This monocotyledonous tree is native to the arid southwestern United States, specifically California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, where it is confined mostly to the Mojave Desert between 400 and 1,800 m (1,300 and 5,900 ft) elevation. It thrives in the open grasslands of Queen Valley and Lost Horse Valley in Joshua Tree National Park. A dense Joshua tree forest also exists in the Mojave National Preserve, on the Cima Dome, (Cima, California), northeast of Kingman, Arizona in Mohave County, Arizona, as well as along U.S. 93 between the towns of Wickenburg and Wikieup, and designated as the Joshua Tree Parkway of Arizona. The name Joshua tree was given by a group of Mormon settlers crossing the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. The tree's unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer.[6][7][8] Ranchers and miners who were contemporary with the Mormon immigrants used the trunks and branches as fencing and for fuel for ore-processing steam engines. It is also called izote de desierto (Spanish, "desert dagger"). It was first formally described in the botanical literature as Yucca brevifolia by George Engelmann in 1871 as part of the Geological Exploration of the 100th meridian or Wheeler Survey. In addition to the autonymic subspecies Yucca brevifolia subsp. brevifolia, two other subspecies have been described: Yucca brevifolia subsp. jaegeriana (the Jaeger Joshua tree or Jaeger's Joshua tree or pygmae yucca) and Yucca brevifolia subsp. herbertii (Webber's yucca or Herbert Joshua tree), though both are sometimes treated as varieties or forms.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Liliopsida
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Order: Asparagales
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Family: Asparagaceae
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Genus: Yucca
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