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Aloe affinis [family ALOACEAE]

Date Updated: 19 August 2007

Herbarium
South African National Biodiversity Institute, Compton Herbarium, Cape Town (SAM)
Collection
Flora of Southern Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of South Africa, (2003) Author: Dr J.P. Roux
Names
Aloe affinis [family ALOACEAE]
Common names
A. immaculata Pillans: 25 (1934b); Reynolds: 239 (1950); Jeppe: 81 (1969); Bornman & D.S.Hardy: 101 (1972); B.-E. van Wyk & G.F.Sm.: 200 (1996). Type: Northern Province, Malips Drift, Herre SUG6774 (BOL, holo.!).
Information
Plants solitary, stemless, 200-300 mm tall excluding inflorescence. Leaves 16-20, 200^-00 x 50-100 mm, ascending, D-shaped to slightly channelled in section, green, lineate, with no to few spots on upper surface only, usually with maroon horny margins between teeth. Inflores­cence with 3-8 ultimate branches; racemes sub-cylindric, dense; bracts deltoid-acuminate, ± 13-23 x 3 mm, ± 5-nerved. Flowers dull brick-red, sometimes clavate above constriction above ovary, 25-45 mm long; outer segments free for 6-10 mm, inner segments adnate to outer; pedicels 15-22 mm long, lengthening to 25-30 mm in fruit. Anthers not or hardly exsert-ed. Ovary 7-9 x 2-3 mm, green; style exserted 0-4 mm. Fruit ± 17 x 8 mm, bluish grey. Flowering time May to June.
Habitat
Berger (1908) considered that this species was related (affinis, in Latin) to A. zebrina. This is undoubtedly true, but the relationship is no closer than that between this species and any other maculate.
Use
47. Aloe affinis A.Berger in Das Pflan-zenreich 33: 206 (1908); Pole Evans: t. 759 (1939a); Reynolds: 243 (1950); Jeppe: 80 (1969); Bornman & D.S.Hardy: 105 (1972); Compton: 97 (1976); B.-E. van Wyk & G.F.Sm.: 182 (1996). Type: Mpumalanga, near Lyden-burg, Wilms 1490 (B).
Range
Aloe affinis has been recorded in the Northern Province, Gauteng and Mpumalanga, and occurs on sandy loam in bushveld. Plants of this species normally have leaves without spots or with only very few, irregularly arranged spots, and choco­late-brown horny margins. However, one finds plants with unspotted leaves in the same popula­tion as plants with quite densely spotted leaves, and plants with continuous, broken and absent brown margins all in one population. The absent to obscure leaf spots, brown horny margins and flowers with pronounced basal swellings distin­guish typical plants of this species from all other species. Map 37.
Aloe affinis [family ALOACEAE]
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