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The taxonomy of H. whipplei is complex and controversial. Hesperoyucca was described as a genus by George Engelmann as long ago as 1892, but it has taken recent DNA analysis to confirm that they are genetically distinct from Yucca. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperoyucca_whipplei

Also, I learned that the Joshua Tree, which no one seems to ever call a yucca, really is a species of the genus Yucca (Y. brevifolus).

>The taxonomy of *H. whipplei* is complex and controversial. Hesperoyucca was described as a genus by George Engelmann as long ago as 1892, but it has taken recent DNA analysis to confirm that they are genetically distinct from Yucca. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperoyucca_whipplei Also, I learned that the Joshua Tree, which no one seems to ever call a yucca, really *is* a species of the genus Yucca (*Y. brevifolus*).

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[–] • 1 pt

Yucca is a pretty common horticultural name, applied to a number of species similar to true yuccas. It's also common for them to reclassify the genera, and keep the common name when doing so. They only recently(2017) classified rosemary as a salvia, because they DNA tested it for example. This was recently reclassified as Hesperoyucca, only because they could prove it has distinct DNA that matches other Hesperoyuccas. It's still very similar to yucca, because of the leaves and flowers/seeds resembling true yucca, and contains saponins, it's no wonder people call it yucca. To this day botanists are constantly changing genera and species, and continue to fight over names.

[–] • 1 pt

Thanks for all that info, but I really already knew about the constantly adjusting state of bioligical taxonomies (I studied a little botany and geology in college many years ago). There are indeed lots of different yuccas, but having grown up in the high desert region of Southern California it was assumed at the time that everyone knew what a yucca was, and it was that plant which grew in the nearby hills and canyons. My high school yearbook was even named 'The Yucca.' --No one ever told me then, that long ago it was described to be a 'Hesperoyucca' (within which genus there are only two species), and controversially, not necessarily a part of the same genus as most other yuccas. Nor did I ever realize that all the 'Joshua trees' that grew nearby were actually of the Yucca genus. Nobody I knew ever referred to a Joshua tree as being a yucca. Since both of these were such common plants in the local area, I might have expected that maybe one of my college professors/instructors would have mentioned it.