The yucca on my terrace never ceases to amaze me. Right now, an entire month into the fall, it has four stems in full bloom. Tall and sturdy, they are stunning to behold. Their meaty flowers boggle the mind. In addition, the fifth stem is in bud already. In a couple of weeks, it will be in flower, too. Given that the winter is nigh, this appears to be a mistake on yucca’s part, but seasons are gradually losing their meaning. Many plants in and around Motovun are making similar “mistakes,” which cannot but add up to a lesson in climate change. After all, the yucca is obviously doing so well on my terrace that it is hard to imagine that it has ever blundered, as I have repeatedly argued in my naïveté (“Yucca’s Blunder,” November 26, 2009; and “Yucca’s Blunder, Again,” November 15, 2014). And so I keep going to my terrace day after day and staring at the blossoming plant for ever-longer stretches of time. Every now and then, I also shake my head in disbelief. Or is it wonder? A lesson in climate change to reckon with, no doubt.

Addendum (November 20, 2019)

A full month later, the five yucca stems mentioned in this piece have wilted already. But there are two more by now. One of them is in full bloom, and the other is in bud already. It will be in flower in a couple of weeks. And its anyone’s guess whether there will appear even more stems by the time winter officially arrives. Given my own experience with the yucca on my terrace, this would be hardly surprising. For all the rain that has visited Istria this month, it is pretty warm. The lowest temperatures at night are not even close to freezing. By and by, the yucca is outsmarting us all. Winter, what winter?