A tree, 30°—40° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, rising abruptly from a broad thick basal disk, thick tough roots descending deeply into the soil, and stout branches spreading into a broad, often symmetrical head formed by the continued forking of the branches at the base of the terminal flower-clusters; the stem until 8°—10° high simple and clothed to the ground with leaves erect until after the appearance of the first flowers, then spreading at right angles and finally becoming reflexed. Bark 1′—1½′ thick, deeply divided into oblong plates frequently 2° long. Wood light, soft, spongy, difficult to work, light brown or nearly white; sometimes cut into thin layers and used as wrapping material or manufactured into boxes and other small articles. The seeds are gathered and eaten by Indians. Distribution. Southwestern Utah to the western and northern rim of the Mohave Desert in California; most abundant and of its largest size on the foothills on the desert slope of the Tehachapi Mountains, California. 8. Yucca gloriosa L. Spanish Dagger. [Illustration: Fig. 113] Leaves 2°—2½° long, gradually narrowed above the broad base and then gradually broadened to above the middle, thin, flat or slightly concave toward the apex, frequently longitudinally folded, dull often glaucous green, roughened on the under surface especially above the middle, with a stout dark red tip, and pale margins serrulate toward the base of the leaf, with minute early deciduous teeth, or occasionally separating into thin fibres. Flowers in October, in pubescent or glabrate panicles, 2°—4° long, on stout stalks sometimes 3°—4° in length, their large creamy white bracts forming before the panicle emerges a conspicuous egg-shaped bud 4′—6′ long; perianth when fully expanded 3½′—4′ across, its segments thin, ovate, acute, or lance-ovate, often tinged with green or purple, slightly united at the base, pubescent at apex; stamens about as long as the ovary, with hispid or slightly papillose filaments and deeply emarginate anthers; ovary slightly lobed, 6-sided, light green, gradually narrowed into the elongated spreading stigmatic lobes. Fruit very rarely produced, prominently 6-ridged, pendulous, 3′ long, 1′ in diameter, cuspidate, raised on a short stout stipe, with a thin leathery almost black outer coat; seeds ¼′ wide and about 1/36′ thick, with a smooth coat and a narrow marginal rim. A tree, with a trunk occasionally 6°—8° high and 4′—6′ in diameter, simple or rarely furnished with a few short branches and usually clothed to the base with pendant dead leaves; in cultivation often becoming much larger, with a stout trunk covered with smooth light gray bark, and erect or in one form (var. _recurvifolia_ Engelm.) pendulous leaves. Distribution. Sand dunes and the borders of beaches of the seacoast from North Carolina to northern Florida. Often cultivated with many forms in the gardens and pleasure-grounds of all temperate countries.