EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Solo Sotol

Desert Spoon or Common Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri), Family Asparagaceae
Arizona, USA

Explanation:  Reaching to an empty sky is the lone spikebush of a plant called a desert spoon or common sotol.  We are in southern Arizona this week, in the Sonoran Desert to be exact.  And here thrives this rather unlikely-shaped plant.

The sotol is of the same family as yuccas -- and of the edible asparagus! -- but it is most definitely not a cactus, even though its sharp-tipped leaves look like overgrown spines and are edged by ragged, biting teeth that likely dissuade being eaten by herbivores.  

 
Whether one-spiked or three-spiked, the sotol is
an unmistakable denizen of the Sonoran Desert
of southwest U.S. and northwest Mexico.

 

 

This is part of the bloom spike of a sotol.

In full bloom, the plant puts out a full column of densely packed whitish flowers, making this perennial a favorite for arid-site yard plantings and horticultural sales.

Sotol has many traditional uses, including their leaves being
used to weave baskets, mulch, thatch, mats, and other applications.

And the plant is used to create a distilled spirit drink -- not
unexpectedly also called sotol -- through a crushing
and fermentation process.

 
As sotol ages, it can produce a "skirt" of dead leaves
around the base, which provides habitat for a
variety of desert lizards, snakes, rodents, insects,
and other animals ... although this ecological function
seems to be very poorly studied.

We had explored the Ecology of Skirts in a previous EPOW episode
that also featured our sotol friend here.