The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Nolina microcarpa
Also called Beargrass, Bear Grass
Nolina microcarpa, sacahuista or beargrass, is a clump-forming desert perennial with long, narrow, grasslike leaves rising from a woody underground caudex. It is hardy and drought tolerant, needing full sun and very well-drained soil.
Nolina microcarpa is a species of flowering plant in the asparagus family known by the common names sacahuista and palmilla. Like other species of Nolina, it may be called beargrass. It is native to northern Mexico and the southwestern United States in Arizona and New Mexico. It does occur in the southwestern corner of Utah, where it has a limited distribution on Navajo Sandstone, but reports of it occurring in Texas may be in error.
Sacahuista is variable in appearance. In general it is a large plant that grows in clumps up to two meters wide. It produces a rosette of many narrow leaves each up to 130 centimetres (4.3 feet) long but only 1.2 centimetres (0.47 inches) wide. The grasslike leaf blades are thick, rough, and serrated. There is no aboveground stem; the leaves grow from a woody underground caudex.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Nolina microcarpa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
