Comparing the first three pictures (taken in the wild) to the fourth (taken in cultivation), it may be hard to believe that they represent the same species.
The plants occur in quartz gravel on hillocks on the southwestern Knersvlakte.
They are geophytes, with a tuber up to 1.5 cm tall and 2 cm wide and 8-14 leaves, which are about 5 mm wide and die back at flowering.
The inflorescence is to 15 cm tall, with about 10 flowers, appearing in late spring / early summer (October-November).
Eburneus means ivory-white and refers to the colour of the flowers. These appear from June through September and are up to about 3 cm in diameter, rather big for the size of the plants.
The leaves are densely covered with papillae and 1-2 cm long.
The species has a relatively small distribution area in the southwest corner of the Great Karoo, from Sutherland to Matjiesfontein.
In general, this species is stemless and growing singly or in small groups, but sometimes groups of over 20 rosettes are formed.
Each rosette has 14-16 leaves, about 16 cm long and 6 cm wide at the base, usually olive-green with many whitish-green spots, but in some cases light green and unspotted.
The flowers are very striking and because of their conspicuous stripes apparently unique within the genus.
The plants occur on gypsum soil in the Al Madu (Ahl Medow) Mountain Range (north of Erigavo) in Somaliland, at 1,500 to 1,550 m, mostly in shade.
Aloe somaliensis was described in 1899, from plants that were raised at Kew from seeds that had been collected a few years before, probably at Sheikh pass in Somaliland Protectorate (as it was then called). It is now known to occur not only in Somaliland but also in Djibouti, on rocky slopes at altitudes between 700 and 1700 m.
It may be of interest to know that the accompanying pictures were taken late January 2015, likely at roughly the same spot the original seeds came from.
The plants grow singly or in small groups and bear 12-16 leaves, usually narrowly lance-shaped and about 20 cm long.
The inflorescences are 60-80 cm tall.
As the first picture shows, these up to 2m tall, dense clumps are very conspicuous in the field.
The branches are yellowish-green to grey-green, usually up to 3 cm thick at the base and 1.2 cm in diameter above, with leaves that soon disappear.
Between July to September one can find the plants in flower.
The plants occur mainly in flat open gravelly or sandy plains, sometimes on low stony slopes. They are widely distributed from the Haalenberg east of Luederitz in Namibia to Kamieskroon in Namaqualand and Namies in Bushmanland.
These pictures were taken in June and July (winter).
Like other Stomatiums, these plants form small to medium-sized cushions, which over time often die down from the centre.
The leaves are spatula-shaped to three-angled in cross-section and distinctly broadened towards the tips. The margins usually bear 3-6 (but sometimes up to 18) teeth, whereas the keel is either smooth or decorated with 1-3 teeth.
The flowers appear in September; they open in the evening, are to 22 mm in diameter and have bright yellow petals with red tips.
The plants are found in the southwest corner of the distribution area of Stomatium, on shallow gravel and stony ground in the Sutherland-Laingsburg area, where it can be quite cold in winter.
The pictures were taken in spring and summer, between mid October (#1) and mid January (#4).
These peculiar little plants occur in the northwest corner of the Richtersveld (Oranjemund to Koekenaap), where they form rather dense mats.
They have tuberous roots and tough and fibrous aerial stems, which are more or less terete, 30-100 mm long and 2-5 mm in diameter. The stems do not stick out more than a few cm above ground, as a result of the continuously blowing sand-blasting winds; they are protected by a thick leathery skin.
The flowers appear from April through September and are usually yellow-green (Williamson in his Richtersveld book gives the colour as mainly chocolate to orange-brown).
The first two pictures show how the plants curve their leaves inwards as a protection against sun and wind in the dry season.
This picture was taken late January, the next one mid March.
Widespread from Ceres in the southwestern Cape to Albany in the Eastern Cape, this species is often a dominant feature of the landscape in the Little Karoo and southern parts of the Great Karoo. This is especially the case in the dry season, when the plants look distinctly reddish.
Usually the rosettes are single, but sometimes they form small groups; they are short-stemmed or (in old plants) with a stem up to half a meter long.
The leaves are long (about 30 cm) and rather narrow (about 6 cm at base), most of the time reddish-green -but see above. The name microstigma (very small spot) refers to the numerous white spots that are usually present on both sides of the leaves. The margins are armed with sharp teeth.
The inflorescences are up to 1 m tall, normally 2-3 per rosette, always undivided.
In most cases the flowers are bicoloured in red and yellow, being dull red in bud and turning yellow on opening ; sometimes they have only one colour, either red or yellow. They appear mainly from May to July.
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