This is a great year for yuccas! Everyone seems to be commenting on how prolific and luscious the flowers are this year, and making comparisons to last year when few plants flowered and they were less obvious in the landscape. Back in mid-May, Bee Lady remarked on it first—when we saw this young stalk sprouting in Red Rocks with a thousand or three of its kin. 
I took the rest of these photos in early June (6/3). Each stalk has many individual large waxy flowers, 40-50 on average, and many plants have more than one stalk, as shown in this typical healthy plant. That should mean LOTS of reproductive power. However, despite the efforts of the Yucca Moth, its dedicated pollinator, only a few fruits per stalk or plant will ripen to seed. One problem is, the flowers are tasty! While I didn’t pick any for salads, I noticed our Muley friend checking one afternoon to see if they were at peak flavor.[*followup on 6/13/06 at Yuccas part 2]
*Blogger doesn't want to upload any more photos right now... will try again later.
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