=Aloe globuligemma=, _Pole Evans in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Africa_, vol. v. pp. 30-32, Pls. x., xi.
This remarkable Aloe was collected by Messrs. Wickens and Pienaar in M‘Phathlele’s Location in the Pietersburg District during January, 1914. Specimens brought to the Botanical Laboratories, Pretoria, flowered during July and August of the same year.
In M‘Phathlele’s Location the plant occurs in vast numbers in a very gregarious manner on the open sandy plains. In fact, it is not uncommon to find long, continuous belts of thickly crowded plants extending for two or three hundred yards in length. The plant is typical of the Low Veld and the river valleys which run from the Zoutpansberg into the Limpopo basin.
At first the racemes are furnished with widely separated spherical to globular flower-buds which develop with considerable slowness.
The unopened flowers are rich nopal red (R.C.S.), tinged with green at the tips. When open, the flowers become a sulphur-yellow (R.C.S.).
Our illustration was made from a plant in the Aloe collection at the Botanical Laboratories, Pretoria.
DESCRIPTION:--A succulent, stemless plant. _Leaves_ 16-23 in a dense rosette, glaucous, erect-spreading, 45-50 cm. long, 8-9 cm. broad at the base, lanceolate-ensiform, acuminate, acute and recurved at the apex, unspotted, somewhat flat at the base and canaliculate above, with cartilaginous wavy and toothed margins; teeth pale brown and at right angles to the margins, 1·5-2 mm. long, and about 8-9 mm. apart, deltoid, recurved. _Inflorescence_ a panicle, with 5-7 spreading horizontal to oblique branches with a few small deltoid-acute empty bracts at the base. _Peduncle_ 06-1 metre high, stout, glaucous, naked. _Racemes_ densely flowered, 22-40 cm. long. _Flowers_ secund, all pointing towards the centre of the inflorescence and at the same time slightly deflexed; young buds distinctly globular; in open flowers nopal-red (R.C.S.), green at the tips; mature flowers sulphur-yellow (R.C.S.) and tinged with red towards the base. _Floral-bracts_ reflexed, 5-6 mm. long, ovate-cuspidate, scariose, pellucid. _Pedicels_ recurved, 3-4 mm. long. _Perianth_ 25 mm. long, cylindrical-ventricose; outer segments free for 15-17 mm., obtuse and recurved at the apex, 3-5-veined; inner segments obtuse, recurved, tipped with auburn (R.C.S.) at the apex, with 3 inner veins. _Stamens_ exserted for 11 mm.; filaments slightly recurved, the exposed portion chestnut-brown (R.C.S.) to black. _Anthers_ mars-orange (R.C.S.). _Style_ pale sulphur-yellow (R.C.S.), stout, recurved. _Capsule_ shortly stipitate, 23 mm. long, 13 mm. in diameter, oblong-ovoid.