Plant · P-985

Yucca Soap

Yucca glauca

Soapweed yucca is a slow-growing, cold-hardy evergreen native to the dry plains and sandy hills of central North America, forming a low rosette of stiff blue-green dagger-shaped leaves topped by a tall flowering stalk of pendulous white blooms in summer. Its roots are rich in saponins and are crushed to make a traditional soap and shampoo, and its fibrous leaves have long served for cordage, basketry and woven mats. Flowers, flowering stems, fruit and seedpods are all edible after cooking.