SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Aloe arborescens: floribus spicatis rubescentibus, apice viridibus: foliis porrectis, lanceolatis, carneis, apice recurvatis, marginibus serratis: caule ad basin nudo, superne foliis circumsesso.
Aloe with a tree-like stem. Flowers grow in spikes of a soft red colour, green at the ends. Leaves straight out, lance-shaped, fleshy, and recurved, with sawed margins. Stem naked at the base, surrounded by the leaves on the upper part.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A leaf.
2. A flower spread open.
3. Seed-bud and pointal.
4. Miniature representation of the plant.
This fine tall plant has been but rarely seen in bloom near town. The specimen from which our figure was made, was sent to London by the Rev. George Reading Leathes, from his collection at Bury St. Edmund’s, to his friend sir T. G. Cullum, bart. and obligingly communicated to us by that gentleman. It grows twelve feet high, and is considered as one of the loftiest of the Aloe tribe (the dichotoma and ferox excepted), the former of which is said to arrive sometimes to the enormous height of twelve feet in circumference round the stem, twenty feet high, and four hundred round the extremity of the branches. Colonel Paterson, in his Travels in Africa, mentions, that after crossing the Cousie or Sand River he visited a European and his family, who with their cattle had no other tenement but what nature had furnished them with in the Aloe dichotoma.[Pg 73]
PLATE CCCCLXIX.
PROTEA CORONATA.