Elephant's-foot
Beaucarnea recurvata (K.Koch & Fintelm.) Lem.
- light
- Full sun
- water
- Little
- tall
- 2.1 m
- wide
- 1.2 m
Asparagaceae
Formerly Beaucarnea inermis, Beaucarnea tuberculata, Dasylirion inerme, Dasylirion recurvatum, and 4 more
When it flowers
Not known yet in the tropics: too few flowering observations to read a season from.
If a child, a pet or anyone may have eaten a plant, contact a doctor or vet straight away, or call the National Poisons Information Centre (AIIMS, New Delhi) on 1800 116 117, free and open 24 hours.
Something wrong with it?About it
- Grows as
- Caudex treeKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Climate
- Desert or dry shrublandKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Wild in
- Mexico (Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, Veracruz)Kew's checklist, not yet checked
- Light
- Full sun (6 h or more)Read from NC State Extension and Wikipedia, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources. Sources differ: NC State Extension full; Wikipedia full, part
- Height
- 1.8 m to 2.4 mRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Spread
- 91 cm to 1.5 mRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Water
- Little: takes droughtRead from NC State Extension and Wikipedia, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources
- Flowers
- CreamRead from NC State Extension and Wikipedia, checked by a majority of its sourcesBacked by both sources. Sources differ: NC State Extension cream, white; Wikipedia cream
- Coldest it survives
- 4.5 °C (USDA zone 11a)Read from NC State Extension and Wikipedia, checked: the middle of what its sources sayHalfway between its 2 sources, which differ. Sources differ: NC State Extension -1.1 °C; Wikipedia 10 °C
Not known yet: heat, hottest it survives.
In other languages (2)
- Chinese
- 酒瓶蘭, 酒瓶兰
- American English
- bottle-palm
Where this comes from
- Wikidata, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0
- Kew's checklist, read 2026-10-24, CC-BY-4.0
- NC State Extension, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikipedia, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikimedia Commons, read 2026-10-25, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 3D model: Beaucarnea recurvata (built for Vanagrha) by Vanagrha, own
A fact “checked by a majority of its sources” was settled by a vote of the pages it was read from, not by a person reading it; one marked “one source” rests on that page alone. Anything else not marked checked has not been checked yet. Where nothing is known, the page says so rather than guess.