In message . com, Phil
writes

We have (or at least, had) a very healthy yucca plant. It's been
planted directly in the ground for a number of years. It's currently
about 7-8ft tall.

A couple of things have happened this summer

1. The thing seemed to have flowered - a couple of tall stalks appeared
at the top, with lots of yellow flowers

2. With the hot weather we had in July, the ground around the base of
the yucca caught alight. The tree wasn't actually on fire, but the
area was smouldering for about 12 hours.

Now, a lot of the lower leaves are turning brown. I'm not sure if
that's as a result of the yucca having flowered or a result of the
fire.

I have photos on line if you'd care to take a look
http://www.philhartree.plus.com/yucca/yucca.htm

We have now cut back the brown leaves and the flowering stalks. In
addition, it looks like the crown is actually made up from 3 stems that
are all together. The flowering stems appeared from between these
stems, rather than from inside each of them. I hope that make sense.

I got to your site but could not get the photographs. Yuccas are very
tough. We had one in our front garden and dug it out 20 years ago. It
re-appeared around 10 years ago and quickly produced lots of babies. My
advice to you would be to wait and see. Ours flowers several times a
year and never gets brown leaves, so you may be in for a long wait.
--
June Hughes