Agave or Yucca? How to Tell The Difference

Many desert plants have spiky leaves and grow in a rosette. Have you ever looked at a plant and wondered, “Is that an agave or a yucca?” Discover how these two groups of plants are alike, and how they’re different, here.

Agaves and yuccas are commonly used desert landscape plants that have much in common, so it can be hard to tell them apart.

They both have long, spiky leaves that grow in rosettes. When in bloom, their flowers grow on tall stalks. When grown as desert landscape plants, they require similar growing conditions — sunny, hot, and dry.

They are botanical “cousins.” Both Agave and Yucca are plant genera in the Asparagaceae family (formerly Agavaceae family).

But I’ve got a few tips so that you’ll soon be able to tell them apart 99% of the time. (Of course, there are a few exceptions.)

How Agaves & Yucca Differ

For all their similarities, there are also some key differences between these two groups of plants. Here are a few notable ways agaves and yuccas differ that will help you tell them apart.

Leaves

Agaves have fleshy, succulent leaves that usually have serrated edges and/or sharp, pointed tips.

Yucca leaves are thinner, straighter, and not fleshy. Yuccas are considered “semi-succulents” rather than succulents. Words that come to mind when describing yucca leaves are “sword-like” or “dagger-like.” They are stiff with pointy tips.

Size

Agaves can grow to be huge, but are usually about as tall as they are wide. Yuccas grow taller than wide and some eventually form a tree-like trunk, such as the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia). Agaves never have a noticeable trunk.

Flowers

One significant way that agaves and yuccas differ is in their flowers. Both produce flowers that are fascinating in their own way.

Agave Flowers

Agaves are monocarpic, meaning they bloom once in their lifetime and then die. There are two main forms of reproductive stalks — unbranched, which grow like a pole, and branched, which grow in a candelabra shape.

The stalks of some species are covered with flowers that are followed by seeds, while others are covered with baby plants called bulbils.

The appearance of agave flower stalks varies greatly by species but what they all have in common is that they are big and grow fast. Agave stalks are huge relative to the size of the plant — some tower at 40 feet! And they grow so fast, up to one foot per day, that you can see the difference from one day to the next.

Stalks look like giant asparagus, apropos for a plant in the Asparagaceae (i.e., asparagus) family. 😉

Yucca Flowers

Yuccas are polycaric (bloom more than once) and normally flower every year. All have big, white, bell-shaped flowers that are pollinated by moths. Their flower stalks are tall but are more proportionate to the plant size than agave stalks.

Amazing Fact!
Each species of yucca is pollinated by only one species of moth.

Range

There are currently 225 accepted species of Agave. Their native range extends from the southern US to northern South America plus the Caribbean. They have naturalized in large swaths on every continent except Antarctica.

There are 54 accepted species of Yucca. They have a more northern natural range than agaves. Their range includes almost every US state and, surprisingly, includes the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario. Yuccas have naturalized on other continents in limited areas.

Agave & Yucca Compared

Here’s a comparison chart that summarizes the differences between these two genera.

	Agave	Yucca
Leaves	Succulent	Semi-succulent, sword-like
Shape	Approximately as tall as wide	Taller than wide, often tree-like
Blooms	Monocarpic, Blooms once	Polycarpic, Blooms annually
Flower Stalk	Huge, grows fast	Large but proportionate
Flower Appearance	Small, color varies	Large, always white
# of Species	299	53
Origin	Southern US to South America	Canada to Central America

There are still a few times that you might be fooled. Don’t feel bad if you can’t always tell them apart. I recently saw a young beaked yucca (Yucca rostrata) that I almost mistook for a twin-flower agave (Agave geminiflora).

But with the information above, you’ll be right most of the time.

There are other plants that can be confused with agaves and yucca, too. Aloes can look a lot like agaves, and some of the large, tree-like aloes can be mistaken for yuccas. Learn how to tell the difference between agaves and aloe here.

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Photo Credits

California State Parks Foundation

Coconino National Forest, CC BY 2.0, Wikipedia Commons