Joshua Tree is the common name for taxonomical Yucca Brevifolia, and well known for the national park which bears its name. Beautiful and ancient, specimens taller than a person and many branched may be over 100 years old. Exceptional competitors are thought to reach an age in excess of 5 centuries. Its native range includes Keys View, within the rocky arms of the Little San Bernardino Mountains.
Life for desert plants is incredibly tough. Even in favorable conditions, many viable seeds do not germinate. Those that do usually succumb to animal activity, or elemental extremes. Often those to reach maturity were seedlings under the inadvertant protection of spiny neighbors already established, sometimes called nurse plants. Although their endemic expanse is relative to the Mojave Desert borders, there are locations where they venture into other arid areas. Yucca Brevifolia sneak into the Great Basin Desert near Tonopah Nevada, the Sonoran Desert near central Arizona, and in chaparral near Lake Isabella in California.
Yucca Brevifolia survives at a variety of elevations, but appear more inclined to thrive between 3,000 and 6000 feet. They inhabit such mountainous margins of the Mojave as the hills around Pioneertown, the Hexie Mountains near Skull Rock, and the desert side slopes heading up to, the Big Bear Region, but absent from its apex. Botanists recognize two varieties, var. Brevifolia has standard morphology, and multiple branches only grow after its first bloom. Var. Jageriana, divides prior to flowering and has the overall effect of a dwarf tree.
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