PlantFiles: Joshua Tree
Yucca brevifolia

A synonym of this plant is Clistoyucca brevifolia (Engelm.) Rydb.

Spent a lot of time with the Joshua Trees living outside Death Valley in Nevada for some years. Now I have one growing in one of my xeriscape beds here in Arkansas and it's actually surviving, wet and cold haven't bothered it, though it is planted in a 50/50 gravel/sand mix on a southwest wall. Grew from seed years ago, now about a foot tall. You can grow almost anything from the desert anywhere, provided it's hardy enough, you give it amazing drainage and plenty of sun. Also have sagebrush, pinyons, and a hundred other things that don't grow naturally within a thousand miles of here.

The Joshua tree is a large, erect, evergreen, arborescent monocot. It is usually single-stemmed, but trees with two or three stems will sometimes occur. The Joshua tree is the largest nonriparian plant of the Mojave desert, they can reach heights of 16 to 49 feet, and the trunks can grow 2 to 4 feet in diameter. Erratic branching will generally begin at 3 to 10 feet above the ground. Flowering of the Joshua tree requires a year with sufficient precipitation, if enough precipitation occurs they will generally begin to bloom in early spring with 18 inch clusters of 1.5 inch yellowish, bell-shaped flowers. This species grows from southern California, Mexico, and western Arizona eastward into southern Nevada and southwestern Utah.