Bottle Brush Aloe

spicata: arranged in a spike.

Shrub or tree-like succulent plant. Stem erect, simple or branched, 1-2 m tall, sometimes forming shrubs with decumbent stems. Leaves in a dense rosette, spreading becoming recurved, 60-80 cm long, green but often entirely coppery-red in dry conditions; margin reddish with 3-angular teeth. Inflorescences 1-5, simple, erect, up to 1m high. Raceme very densely many-flowered, 30-50 cm long, cylindric; bracts pale brown, c. 10 × 6 mm, ovate-acuminate. Flowers subsessile, c. 15 mm long, campanulate, greenish-yellow to golden yellow.

Local

Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.