yucca plants?

[jnunniv]

I was told by someone that if you see yucca plants out in the woods, there is a very good chance there used to be an old home nearby.  This is because although they grow well here, they are nonnative and used to be popular to have in your yard/property.  Does anyone know if this is true?

With this being said, I have seen them on the last two trips in the Sipsey.  Once on the White Oak trail to the East Bee, and then last weekend on Borden Creek.  If it's true, did either one of these location used to have a homestead nearby the plant sightings?

[Joshua Szulecki]

Yes and no. Yucca filamentosa actually is native to TN/VA and parts south. If you were north of TN or VA, you'd have a pretty good chance of it being a sign of a homestead, because it is introduced there, due to ornamental planting.

Since it generally occurs in open sites, finding it in the woods might be a good sign of a homestead site, since the plant is a pretty common ornamental plant, especially in N. Alabama and TN. However, since it is native, and since some parts of Bankhead were logged (and were thus open sites ), and because plants break botanical rules all the time, you cannot be 100 percent sure.

I actually saw Yucca filamentosa in the Thompson Creek drainage recently, in the woods, and not near an obvious building site.

[wyleone]

Just about everyone on my street has at least one. I have one outside my bedroom window. Hehe Mine has never tried to branch out so I would say it would have to be planted around here.

[weathermansam]

Read the books available about the area, there's a wealth of cultural history in them.  You'll never look at Sipsey the same way again.  The land near the creeks were farmed at one time, and I remember reading there was once a sawmill on white oak "creek" and the slaves who worked there lived up on the bluff to the right, using a wooden ladder to get to and from work.  Look for the carvings in the trees around there as well.  "x" trees generally marked a property boundary or a hollow tree that contained a bee hive.