Hesperoyucca whipplei

Hesperoyucca whipplei (syn. Yucca whipplei ) (chaparral yucca, our Lord's candle, Spanish bayonet, Quixote yucca or foothill yucca 
is a species of flowering plant closely related to, and formerly usually included in, the genus Yucca. It is native to southern California, United States and Baja California, Mexico, where it occurs mainly in chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and oak woodland plant communities at altitudes of 0–2500 m.

It produces a stemless cluster of long, rigid leaves which end in a sharp point. The leaves are 20–90 cm (rarely to 125 cm) long and 0.7–2 cm wide, and gray-green in color. The leaf edges are finely saw-toothed.
The single inflorescence grows extremely fast, and reaches 0.9–3 m tall, bearing hundreds of elliptical (bell shaped) white to purplish flowers 3 cm diameter on a densely branched panicle up to 70 cm broad, covering the upper half of the inflorescence. The fruit is a dry winged capsule, which splits open at maturity to release the seeds.
The plant takes several (usually 5+) years to reach maturity and flower, at which point it usually dies. Most subspecies produce offshoots from the base, so that although the parent plant flowers and dies, a cluster of clones around its base continue to grow and reproduce. It may also grow back from its base after much of its foliage has been scorched off by the wildfires that frequent its range.

It is pollinated by the California yucca moth (Tegeticula maculata), a relationship which has become a classic example of symbiosis. Working at night, the female yucca moth collects up to a dozen sacks of pollen grains called pollinia and forms them into a massive ball. She then flies to another plant and lands on the ovary of a flower. 

Standing with her head near the stigma, she inserts her ovipositor into the ovary wall and lays a single egg. She then rubs her pollen mass against the central stigmatic depression, ensuring pollination. The pollinated ovary will now produce many seeds, ensuring an ample food supply for the larva. Although many associations of Yucca and yucca moth exist, Tegeticula muculata and Hesperoyucca whipplei form an exclusive relationship.