Aloe buhrii Lavranos (1971)

DESCRIPTION: Plants stemless, ±300 mm tall excluding inflorescence, forming small groups. Leaves ±16, arcuate-erect to spreading, 200-400 x 40-90 mm, spotted, margins horny, pale red, minutely denticulate. Inflorescence a panicle up to 600 mm tall; racemes dense, subcapitate; bracts deltoid-acute, 5-10 x 2-4 mm, 3-5-nerved. Flowers orange-red, 16-25 mm long; outer segments free for 4-7 mm, inner segments adnate to outer; pedicels 9-25 mm long. Anthers exserted 1-3 mm. Ovary 4.0-5.0 x 2.0-2.5 mm, pale green; style exserted 3-6 mm. Fruit not seen. Acaulescent, succulent perennial, sometimes suckering to form dense colonies. Leaves yellow-green to glaucous-green with reddish tinge, distinctly striate, with irregular, white, H-shaped spots, lanceolate-deltoid, to 40 cm long; margins reddish, smooth to minutely small-toothed. Racemes subcapitate, lax, with spreading branches, to 60 cm long. Flowers orange-red or rarely yellow, green-tipped in bud, 25-27 mm long; stamens and stigma exserted. Plants stemless, dividing into several heads. Leaves about 16, lanceolate-deltoid, arcuate-erect or ascending, up to 40 cm long, 9 cm broad at base, fleshy, rather soft; upper surface slightly canaliculate towards the apex, glaucous, reddish-tinged, distinctly striate and covered irregularly but in parts densely with pale, elongate or 'H'-shaped and often confluent spots: lower surface convex, otherwise as the upper; margins with a pale red, cartilaginous, denticulate or sub-entire border, 1.5-2.0 mm wide, the denticles obtuse, less than 1 mm long, usually 3.5 mm distant but often laterally confluent. Inflorescence laxly paniculate, up to 60 cm tall, branching above the middle into 7-15 rather short lateral branches, the lower ones rebranched, each branch or branchlet subtended by a broadly deltoid, yellowish, 5-8-nerved bract. Peduncle basally biconvex, becoming sub-terete upward, rigid, 12-18 mm broad near its base. Racemes sub-capitate, rather laxly flowered; the buds green-tipped; perianth orange-red, pendulous. Pedicels same colour as the perianth, 20-25 mm long. Bracts narrowly deltoid, acute, 5-10 mm long, yellowish, 3-5-nerved. Perianth 25-27 mm long, with a basal swelling 6 mm diam., constricted to 4 mm above the ovary, thence slightly decurved and widening towards the mouth, outer segments free for 6-7 mm, with 3 congested and apically confluent orange-red nerves; the inner segments broader than the outer..
DISTRIBUTION: RSA (Bokkeveld Escarpment near Nieuwoudtville. Cape Province; Calvinia)
CULTIVATION: easy to grow, but not common

Aloe buhrii in cultivation	Aloe buhrii in cultivation	Aloe buhrii in cultivation
Aloe buhrii in cultivation