Desert spoon facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Desert spoon |
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Dasylirion wheeleri is a cool plant often called desert spoon, spoon flower, or sotol. It's a type of flowering plant in the asparagus family. You can find it growing naturally in dry areas of northern Mexico (in Chihuahua and Sonora) and the southwestern United States (in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas).
What's in a Name?
The name Dasylirion comes from two Greek words. It means something like "dense lily" or "shaggy lily," which makes sense because of its thick leaves. The second part of its name, wheeleri, honors an American explorer and plant collector named George Montague Wheeler (1842-1905).
What Does it Look Like?
The desert spoon is a plant that grows slowly and stays green all year round. It's a type of shrub with one main stem, which can be up to 40 cm thick. This stem usually grows up to 1.5 meters tall, but sometimes it lies flat on the ground.
Its leaves are long and thin, about 35–100 cm long. They are a gray-green color and have small teeth along their edges. The leaves spread out from the center of the plant in all directions, making it look like a big, spiky ball.
When the plant flowers, a tall stem shoots up from the middle, reaching up to 5 meters high. This stem is topped with many small, straw-colored flowers. Each flower is about 2.5 cm long. The color of the flowers can tell you if the plant is male or female. Male plants usually have white flowers, while female plants have purple-pink ones. After flowering, the plant produces small, oval-shaped fruits. These fruits are dry and contain a single seed.
How People Use It
Dasylirion wheeleri is a popular plant for gardens, especially in places where people want to save water. This is called xeriscaping. Because it doesn't like very cold weather, people in cooler areas often grow it indoors in greenhouses. This plant is so nice that it has even won an award called the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit!
A special drink called sotol is made from the inner parts of the desert spoon plant. It's a traditional drink in some Mexican states like Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila.
Native peoples of the region also used the desert spoon for food and to make things. For example, the tall flower stalk could be used to help start fires. The Tarahumara and Pima Bajo people, who live in the Sierra Madre mountains of Chihuahua, are very skilled. They take the leaves, remove the sharp spines, and then weave them into baskets. They also use the wide bases of the leaves to create beautiful artificial flowers for holidays.
Images for kids
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Decorative flowers made from leaf bases; Yepachi, Chihuahua
See also
In Spanish: Dasylirion wheeleri para niños
