Aloe plicatilis
| Aloe plicatilis | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| An Aloe plicatilis in flower. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Order: | Asparagales |
| Family: | Asphodelaceae |
| Subfamily: | Asphodeloideae |
| Genus: | Aloe |
| Species: | A. plicatilis |
| Binomial name | |
|
Aloe plicatilis Mill. |
|
 |
|
Aloe plicatilis, the Fan Aloe, is a species of aloe endemic to a few mountains in the Fynbos ecoregion, of the Western Cape in South Africa. The plant has an unusual and striking fan-like arrangement of its leaves. It may grow as a large multistemmed shrub or, unusually for Aloe species, as a small tree. It is one of five species of tree-aloe indigenous to South Africa, and it is the only tree-aloe native to Fynbos habitats.
Aloe plicatilis derives its common name Fan Aloe, from the unusual distichous arrangement of its linear leaves. Its scientific name plicatilis also means "folded" or "pleated", or possibly "foldable"; it is in any case a misnomer because the leaves are nothing like plicate and do not fold. In the local Afrikaans language, Aloe plicatilis is commonly known as the Waaier Aalwyn (= 'Fan Aloe'). It also is called the Kaapse Kokerboom (= 'Cape Quivertree') because of its resemblance to Aloe dichotoma. The resemblance lies mainly in its dichotomous branching habit, as it usually grows stems too short to be of much use for making quivers.
Aloe plicatilis presents an unusual combination of features among Aloes (arborescent, with trunk branched dichotomously at short intervals, distichous leaves in the mature plant, straight perianth with the inner segments free) so taxonomists have in the past assign it to its own separate sub-genus Kumara within the genus Aloe.
Aloe plicatilis can grow to a height of 3–5 metres (9.8–16.4 ft) tall. The trunk has corky, fire-resistant bark and the branches fork into pairs without a central leader, a pattern known as "dichotomous" branching. The branches bear masses of succulent, oblong, tongue-shaped leaves arranged in 2 opposite rows in the shape of a fan. To the imaginative, the leaf-heads look a bit like a mass of grey hands, raised in the air.
The leaves are grey-green in colour, about 300 mm long and 40 mm wide, and have tiny teeth along the margins that are noticeable only on close inspection. Aloe plicatilis is one of only four species of aloe in the world which display this unusual distichous arrangement of its leaves. Two of these species occur only in Madagascar, while the Fan Aloe and its tiny stemless sister-species Aloe haemanthifolia occupy the same small mountainous corner of the Western Cape in South Africa.
...
Wikipedia