Aloe vulgaris Lam.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Asphodelaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Aloes is a commercial, bitter, drug substance derived from the watery juice of the leaves of this plant, and of other species; it is a native of southern Europe or northern Africa, widely naturalized after cultivation in the West Indies and Central America, and frequent in the dry and coastal parts of Porto Rico. Semper Vive is another name for the plant. To obtain the drug, the leaves are cut off close to the base, and quickly laid or hung in a slanting or vertical position, the juice draining into suitable receptacles; it is then evaporated, yielding the product. The industry has had its greatest development in the Dutch islands Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire. Aloe (an ancient name) is a Linnaean genus of mostly African, fleshy plants, comprising some 80 species, many of them cultivated for ornament and interest. They have large, thick, spiny-toothed, tufted leaves, borne on a short, stout, nearly or quite subterranean stem in the one here illustrated, but the stems of some of the other kinds are quite tall, bearing the tuft of leaves at the top; their nearly cylindric flowers are nodding in long, stalked clusters (racemes), their 6 segments connivent, or coherent, with slightly spreading tips; the 6 stamens have slender filaments and oblong anthers; the ovary is stalkless, 3-celled and 3-angled, containing many ovules, the slender style topped by a small stigma. The fruit is a leathery capsule, splitting length-wise when mature, releasing the many, black seeds. Aloe vulgaris (common) is perennial by slender rootstocks (stolons). Its narrowly lance-shaped, long-pointed, pale green leaves are from 0.3 to 0.6 meters long, thick and fleshy, full of watery juice, their margins with spiny teeth about 2 centimeters apart, or closer together. The stout stalk of the dense flower-cluster (scape) is about twice as long as the leaves, bearing widely separated, broad, pointed scales; the short-stalked, individual, yellow flowers are about 2.5 centimeters long, the stamens about as long as the corolla, the style longer.
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Discussion
Zabila Aloes Lily Family Aloe vulgaris Lamarck, Encyclopédie Méthodique Botanique 1: 86. 1783.