Yucca constricta

Plants forming small to large, open colonies, acaulescent or occasionally caulescent and arborescent; rosettes usually small, asymmetrical. Stems procumbent, to 0.4 m. Leaf blade divergent, spreading, linear or somewhat wider near middle, mostly straight, flattened or plano-convex, 25-65 × (0.3-)0.7-1.5 cm, soft, rigid, margins entire, becoming filiferous, whitish or light green. Inflorescences paniculate, racemose distally, arising 2-4.6 dm beyond rosettes, ovoid, 4.5-13 dm, distance from leaf tips to proximal inflorescence branches more than twice leaf length when fully expanded, glabrous; raceme 20-25 cm; proximal branches 15-25 cm; bracts erect; peduncle scapelike, 1-2 m, less than 2.5 cm diam. Flowers pendent; perianth hemispheric; tepals distinct, pale greenish white, thin, 2.5-4.8 × 1.1-2.6 cm, apex acute; filaments 1.7-2.2 cm, pubescent; anthers 3.2 mm; pistil slender, cylindric, 2.5-3.8 × 0.5-0.6 cm; style whitish or pale green, 8-11 mm; stigmas lobed. Fruits erect, capsular, dehiscent, oblong-cylindric, deeply constricted near middle, (3.5-)4.6-6.3 × (1.5-)2.5-4.3 cm, dehiscence septicidal. Seeds glossy black, thin, 10-15 mm diam.

Flowering spring. Brushwood, grassland areas; 300--700 m; Tex.; ne Mexico.

S. D. McKelvey (1938-1947) treated Yucca tenuistyla and Y. louisianensis as synonyms of Y. constricta. The major differences among these entities involve vestiture in the inflorescences.