Georgia Wildlife Federation

Resources < Wildlife Habitats < Guide to Native Plants of Georgia for Wildlife < Yucca filamentosa

Adam’s Needle is a native plant with a wealth of potential in the landscape as well as a great deal of practical and medicinal use. It may be identified from most other Yuccas by the presence of curly gray filaments at the leaf margins. Yucca leaves make an extremely strong source of fiber and cordage. Native Americans used it for this purpose, and even today Yuccas are employed to make sisal rope. The sharp leaf tips are strong enough to pierce denim and make excellent needles. Another important use of the plant is as soap. Pieces of the thick, large roots create a soapy, cleansing lather with water.

Yuccas have the potential to add a tropical or southwestern look to the landscape and look excellent with other native plants like palms, agaves, or cacti. Their tall flower stalks are a marvelous sight to behold.

Family: Liliaceae (Lily)

Description: Rounded, multi-headed evergreen perennial. Leaves are lance-shaped, thin, fibrous, and strap-like, 1” wide and 2-3’ long. They terminate with a hard, sharp spine. The magnificent inflorescence may be up to 12 feet high, with several dozen white, 2” long waxy flowers that are edible. Bright green fruits turn brown over the autumn and persist on the flower stalk over the winter. Plants die after flowering but leave several vegetative offspring over their lifetimes.

Size: 2-10 feet tall and up to 6’ wide

Habit: Trunkless, clump-forming evergreen perennial

Growth Rate: Moderate to slow

Light: Full sun to part shade

Planting and Care: Yuccas are virtually maintenance-free after planting. They tolerate the driest and rockiest possible sites in the landscape and even tolerate sites with more moisture and less light like open forest floors.

Ornamental Value: Yuccas make a statement in the landscape. The primary asset is the foliage, but many gardeners lie in wait year after year for the spectacular blooms, which are not only huge but strikingly beautiful.

Landscape UsE: Yuccas have a remarkable ability to lend a tropical or southwestern look to the landscape. They are an excellent accent plant to native palms like Sabal palmetto, Sabal minor, Saw Palmetto, or Needle Palm. They are also a staple of the xeriscape, a water conserving landscape. They combine well with plants like Agave, Pricklypear, and native grasses. Another use is security; the sharp-pointed foliage may be taken advantage of under windows to deter humans or as a natural fence in sun or shade. Yucca looks its best when allowed to clump naturally, creating a more pleasing effect than a solitary plant.

Wildlife Benefits: The Adam’s Needle is an important host for the larvae of the Yucca Moth. A unique symbiotic relationship has evolved between the moth and the plant, wherein the moth rolls up a ball of its eggs in the pollen of Yucca flowers. The moth stuffs this ball into the stigma of the flower, pollinating it. The larvae then consume the Yucca fruits as they mature. The adults of a wide variety of other moth species relish the flowers during the night.

Native Habitat: Adam’s Needle favors sandy beaches, dunes, old fields, road shoulders, and open woods and has a coastal range from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Alabama. It has been naturalized outside its native range.

Propagation: Division, seed. Even small pieces of the large roots will sprout.