Yuccas are common on dry coastal sage scrub and chaparral slopes from 1,000' to 4,000'.  Some authors consider "Coastal Yucca Scrub" to be a specialized type of coastal scrub where Yucca whipplei is the dominant plant.  Soils of the Coastal Yucca Scrub are coarse, rocky and infertile.  They are often serpentine in origin.

Yuccas bloom from April - June.  When in bloom, ithey are very easy to spot. The flowering stalks can be  up to 10 feet in height and topped by a large, erect flower cluster.  Yuccas can live up to 20 years but they flower in their final year and die after making fruit.

Leaves are long and spine-tipped.  They grow at ground level in a thick basal rosette.  Yucca leaves contain bundles of elongate fiber cells.  These are easily be pulled out of the leaf blade and can be made into cordage or rope.  The Chumash Shamens used paint brushes made from yucca in creating their rock art.  Other uses include making a needle from the spine at tip of each leaf, eating the young flower stalk both raw (tastes like jicama) and cooked, eating the flower and fruit, and weaving sandals from the leaf fiber.

The plants of the genus Yucca has a unique method of pollination.  They are pollinated by the yucca moth, Tageticula maculata. 
Click here to learn more about this symbiotic relationship.

After a fire, if the fire is not too hot to kill the plant, the Yucca will produce new growth from the root crown of a burnt plant in a process known as crown sprouting.