Aloe Archives - enjoysucculents

Aloe longistyla (Karoo aloe, Karoo aalwyn, ramenas)

Unlike most other dwarf South African Aloes, this species is usually single, but sometimes 2 or 3 rosettes are formed and rarely even up to 10.
Each rosette consists of 20-30 greyish-green to bluish-green, waxy leaves, 12-15 cm long, with soft to hard white spines on both sides and on the margins.
The inflorescences are simple and dense, 15-25 cm tall with very thick stalks. The flowers are about 5.5 cm long (remarkably large for such a small plant) and have a very long style (=longistyla); they appear in June-August and are salmon pink to coral-red.

Usually growing in the shade of small shrubs, the plants occur on stony or sandy flats, sometimes on gentle slopes, from Laingsburg and the Little Karoo to Middelburg and Makhanda (= Grahamstown) in the Eastern Cape. Unfortunately, the plants are short-lived and don’t grow well in cultivation, not even in the area where they occur naturally.

On edge (3 and last)

To end this short series, a few pictures of Monocots.

1 Aloe striata
2 A. ferox
3,4 Boophone disticha

To Somaliland and back

Since I returned from Somaliland last week, I have been pondering how to evaluate the trip.
On the one hand it was a once in a life time experience for me and I’m truly grateful to have been able to do this. I saw many plants that were either new to me or I had not seen for many years. Seeing what people in a country like that have to cope with, also helps in appreciating one’s own situation.
On the other hand we ran into a lot of troubles that made the trip less pleasant and useful than expected. Sometimes the permits we had for travelling within the country were not sufficient; at other times the locals were very suspicious of what we were doing and did not want us to be there. In the end we even decided to cut the visit short and return two days earlier to Ethiopia.
Usually one of the main purposes for a trip like this is making as many pictures as is feasible. Unfortunately the camera I use as a rule (Nikon D700), decided to turn a lot of my pictures completely black. So, although the image took up memory space on the card, it showed only black pixels. Fortunately I brought a spare body (D70) with me, so not al was lost, but calling the problem annoying would be somewhat of an understatement!
In spite of all this, I came home with a number of interesting pictures, some of which will appear on this blog in due course.

To wet your appetite I add some pictures of
Senecio pendulus, Aloe grisea, Dorstenia foetida and Dracaena schizantha resp.

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Aloe perfoliata (2)

Aloe perfoliata (1)

In 2000, Glen and Hardy came to the conclusion that Aloe comptonii, A. distans and A. mitriformis were to be united, under the old name A. perfoliata.
This species is most common in the Little Karoo, bur occurs from the Bokkeveld Mountains in the northwest to Genadendal in the south and Uitenhage in the east. The plants are usually found on sandstone or quartzitic outcrops where they often hang down vertical cliffs with stems up to 3 m long. The leaves are bluish-green and up to 25 cm long.
The flowers vary from dull orange-red to bright red and appear from August to February.

Aloe khamiesensis

The mountainous parts of Namaqualand from Steinkopf to Garies -and some isolated places around Calvinia- are home to this Aloe. The plants are up to 3 m tall, usually with only one unbranched stem. The flowers appear in winter (June-July).
Photographed 10 July 2011, southeast of Kamieskroon.

Aloe variegata

This beautiful and distinctive plant was one of the first Aloes to be successfully cultivated in Europe.
The Afrikaans common name is Kanniedood (cannot die), which may explain why one sees it often planted on graves. It is widely distributed in the dry parts of southern Africa.
The plants prefer stony ground in partial shade (I have never seen a more healthy plant than the one my mother used to grow on her shaded windowsill – and that was in in Holland, not a country known for it abundant sunshine to start with).

Aloe lineata v. muirii

Whereas in v. lineata the leaves are bluish-green, in this variety they have a striking yellow-green colour.

The first two pictures were taken in arid fynbos on the Rooiberg plateau near Calitzdorp (24 August 2007).

The next ones were taken in an old pine plantation near Herold (6 and 17 Nov. 2009).

Impressions from the quiver tree forest near Loeriesfontein

Quiver tree or kokerboom is the local name for Aloe dichotoma.

Coming to terms

When looking up descriptions of plants, one often comes across pieces of botanical jargon, terms that are either used only in botany or have a specific meaning there. Of course there are books and internet sites where one can find the meaning of these terms, but the explanations are often in arcane language and usually there are no illustrations. (“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). In 1993 the British Cactus and Succulent Society published a booklet called “Glossary of botanical terms with special reference to Succulent Plants”, compiled by Urs Eggli. This useful publication is now out of print, but second hand copies can be found on the internet. Unfortunately -like in other publications of this kind- the explanations are accompanied by a line drawing at best, so that it is not always easy to relate the information to a real plant. When thinking about this, I wondered if it might not be a good idea to publish a post occasionally explaining some botanical term and using photos to show what is meant.

To kick off, let’s start with a type of inflorescence that is very common in the Aloaceae family (Aloe, Astroloba, Gasteria, Haworthia, Poellnitzia). It is called a raceme, in which inflorescence the main axis does not end in a flower at the top and the flowers start to open from the bottom upwards. Below left you see a drawing of this. On the right you see a spike, which is a raceme in which the separate flowers have no stalks.

The 3 pictures below show racemes of (from top to bottom) Aloe ferox, Astroloba bullulata and Ornithogalum juncifolium.