Plate 180.
Reading edition
ALOE SESSILIFLORA. Transvaal. Liliaceae. Tribe Aloineae. Aloe, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 776.
Aloe sessiliflora, Pole Evans in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr. vol. v. p. 708.
The species of Aloe figured on the accompanying plate belongs to the less conspicuous members of the genus. The small cream-yellow flowers do not make the inflorescence very attractive. Aloe sessiliflora was collected in the Barberton District by Mr. J. E. Wickens, and flowered at the Union Buildings for the first time in June and July of 1914. Mr. Geo. Thorncroft subsequently collected the plant near Barberton. During the winter months the leaves are of a distinct reddish colour, while in summer they are bright green. The flowers contain drops of very dark nectar at the base of the perianth.
Our plate was made from specimens growing at the Division of Botany, Pretoria.
Description:—Stem up to 90 cm. high. Leaves in a dense rosette at the apex of the stem, 45 to 60 cm. long. 6 to 8 cm. broad, spreading or recurved, fleshy, channelled above, convex beneath, with the margins toothed. Peduncle simple, 60 to 75 cm. long, laterally compressed, covered with numerous oblong brown bracts. Spike densely many-flowered, more or less cylindric; bracts 10 mm. long, 7 mm. wide, ovate-cuspidate, 3-nerved. Flowers campanulate-cylindric; perianth 14 mm. long; segments free; the outer 5 mm. broad, spathulate, fleshy-coloured with three longitudinal dark nerves; the inner 8 mm. broad, yellowish at the edges and with a reddish or greenish median line. Stamens and style protruding 8 to 10 mm. beyond the perianth. Capsule 9 to 10 mm. long, cylindric-oblong, enclosed in the dry peri-anth. Seeds 3 mm. long, three-angled, greyish, very narrowly winged. (National Herb., Pretoria, No. 2880.)
Plate 180.—Fig. 1, habit; Fig. 2, median section of flower; Fig. 3, pistil; Fig. 4, stamen; Fig. 5, bract.
F.P.S.A., 1925.
