Yucca decipiens, Villa Hidalgo, Zac., México

Yucca decipiens Trel.

Chinese Palm, palm soapwort, palm yucca

Climate known 57 photographs Cactus or succulent

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Yucca decipiens Trel. is a large, branching member of the Asparagaceae, native to north-central Mexico from Durango to San Luís Potosí. It is evergreen, up to 20 feet tall, growing at elevations of 1500–2000 m in the mountains. Common name is "palma china," which means "Chinese palm."

Text from Wikipedia, “Yucca decipiens”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Yucca

Yucca is both the scientific name and common name for a genus native to North America from Panama to southern Canada. It contains 50 accepted species. In addition to yucca, they are also known as Adam's needle or Spanish-bayonet. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Yucca”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Asparagaceae

Described by

Trel.

Native to

Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southwest

Wild records

267 in range· 102 open

At a glance

Warmest month

27°C

May, mean day; nights 12 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

482mm/yr

6 wet months · peak Jul 99 mm (CHELSA)

Light

29–49DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Yucca, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 482 mm a year, wettest July at 99 mm, driest March at 7 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 49 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -1.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Sarcoyucca decipiens (Trel.) Linding.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Yucca, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (343 mm of 482 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 18.6 °C against a yearly mean of 16.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 482 mm a year, wettest July at 99 mm, driest March at 7 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

482 mm a year at the habitat, 343 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 99 mm, driest March at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 385 mm to 649 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 49 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 49 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 27, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -1.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -1.3 °C, the absolute minimum -7.5 °C, about 8 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 4.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells 2.6 °C to 6.6 °C), warmest day 26.6 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -1.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 45 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 179 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	19 / 17–20	21 / 19–23	23 / 21–25	26 / 24–27	27 / 25–29	25 / 24–28	24 / 22–26	24 / 22–25	22 / 21–24	22 / 20–24	21 / 19–23	19 / 18–21
Night °C	5 / 3–7	6 / 3–8	7 / 5–10	10 / 8–12	12 / 10–14	13 / 12–15	13 / 11–15	13 / 11–15	12 / 10–14	10 / 8–12	7 / 5–9	6 / 4–8
Rain mm	20 / 15–26	11 / 9–14	7 / 4–10	15 / 5–25	32 / 16–49	72 / 55–96	99 / 70–146	86 / 55–130	86 / 61–112	34 / 29–46	10 / 9–14	10 / 8–15
DLI	30 / 29–32	37 / 35–38	44 / 42–45	48 / 45–49	49 / 45–50	44 / 41–47	41 / 38–44	41 / 38–43	36 / 33–37	35 / 32–36	32 / 30–33	29 / 27–30
RH %	50 / 47–55	48 / 45–53	45 / 41–50	45 / 41–51	49 / 44–55	55 / 51–62	60 / 56–65	60 / 56–64	61 / 58–66	56 / 53–62	51 / 48–57	51 / 48–55

Each figure is the median across the 179 grid cells holding the 253 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1358:1575 (22.075, -101.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -7.5 °C, 1st-percentile night -1.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 179 distinct grid cells holding the 253 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1358:1575 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 22.00_-101.250, lapse-corrected +98 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2249 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeMexico Northeast, Mexico Southwest

Kew's description“tree” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker22.642, -101.895 · in the densest population, 186 records (70% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 267 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 102 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 99 km away. 14 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 267 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Ulises Pinedo, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Adrian Bojorquez, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Humberto Gonzalez Salas, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Tereso Hernández Morales, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Yucca decipiens, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Lead and copper removal from groundwater by spherical agglomeration using a biosurfactant extracted from Yucca decipiens Trel.

Ana M. Bailón-Salas, Luis Alberto Ordaz-Díaz, Isaías Chairez‐Hernández, Alicia Alvarado-de la Peña (2018) · Chemosphere

Secondary Shrubby Communities Provide Nesting Habitat for Birds in a Semiarid Agricultural Landscape

Mónica E. Riojas‐López, Eric Mellink, Noé Abraham Muñoz-Padilla (2019) · Ardea

Granulometry and Functional Properties of Yuca Flour (Yucca decipiens Trel.) for Food Purposes

Selena R. Martínez-Betancourt, Jorge Cadena-Íñiguez, Gerardo Loera-Alvarado, Víctor M. Ruiz-Vera (2025) · Polysaccharides

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