''Aloe speciosa'' is a species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the

Asphodelaceae Asphodelaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Asparagales. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists, but the circumscription has varied widely. In its current circumscription in the APG IV system, it includes about 4 ...

family. It is commonly called tilt-head aloe and is an

arborescent A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing a nonlinear network that "connects any point to any other point". It appears in the work of French theorists Deleuze and Guattari, who used the term in their book ''A Thousand Plateaus'' to ...

aloe indigenous to the thicket vegetation of the southern

Cape Provinces The Cape Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "CPP". It includes the Sout ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

Description

The tilt-head aloe is so named because of the way that its rosette tilts to one side, in the direction of the greatest sun. In its habitat, this is usually to the north (meaning that it acts as a natural compass). It is a tall arborescent aloe species, with long, thin, drooping, pale blue-green leaves, that are densely clustered around its tilted rosette. The pinkish leaf margins are lined with reddish teeth. Several short, cylindrical, single-branched

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

s appear in the early spring, when it flowers. The dense flowers are red or green with white stripes. The Latin name ''"speciosa"'' means showy, and was actually given in reference to its ornamental flowers. The species is also known as ''Aloe hexapetala'' - also in reference to its flowers (''"hexa-petala"'' means ''"six-petaled"'').

Distribution and habitat

The tilt-head aloe is found in two disjunct spots. It occurs in the south-central part of the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

province, from near Swellendam to the

Little Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hard veld") is a semi- desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ...

. It also occurs over a large part of the southern Eastern Cape province as far as the border of the Transkei,

. Here its habitat is often dense thickets, especially the Albany Thicket biome. It often grows in association with ''

Aloe ferox ''Aloe ferox'', commonly known as bitter aloe, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asphodelaceae. This woody aloe is indigenous to southern Africa. It is one of several ''Aloe'' species used to make bitter aloes, a purgative medicatio ...

'', '' A. africana'' and '' A. pluridens'', and hybrids can occur.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aloe speciosa speciosa Flora of the Cape Provinces Taxa named by John Gilbert Baker