Aloe Species

My first thought upon seeing this at a big box store the other day was "Wow, that's an interesting Aloe brevifolia with flatter, wider le...Read Moreaves than usual; I've gotta get it." (A. brevifolia is one of my favorite succulents ever.) Then I saw the tag saying E. elgonica, a species I'd never heard of, despite being a big aloe geek. So of course I bought it, but I have some suspicion that it has some A. brevifolia in it, since the leaves are a lot stubbier (shorter & wider) than the ones in the photos on DG and other sites. Maybe they elongate as the plant ages? Not sure if my plant was grown from seed (in which case the leaves would be expected to be stubbier) or from a cutting (in which case they'd be expected to be longer, like those of a mature plant).
In any case, this is an incredibly cool, robust aloe, with the added benefit of growing only up to about 3-5 feet tall, which will make it easy to move indoors in the winter if needed here (zone 8B/9A). If indeed the ones sold at big box stores (grown by a Cali company whose name begins with "A") do have some A. brevifolia in them, that would be good, in terms of making the mature plant both smaller and more cold hardy. I guess time will tell.

I have had this plant nearly a year and it is already a favorite. It has a graceful clumping form with curvy lush deeply colored leaves ...Read Moreand prominent elegant leaf spines. Its flower is a welcome sight for aloe lovers as it is one of the early aloe flowers of late summer.

It is of easy culture, not at aloe picky about watering overhead and does well in pure DG.

bob
:>)

Nice looking Kenyan Aloe that gets a lot of nice red color in full sun and heat. It's a suckering aloe that can either be a low growing ...Read Moreplant if kept totally devoid of water, or grow up to 3-4' tall if given some protection and water. Rosettes up to 1' across. Leaves recurved, shiny with striking, large, sharp deltoid teeth along the margins. Flowers simple, to slightly branched, and deep red in early spring (northern hemisphere)... however I have seen these plants also bloom, though not as heavily, in mid to late summer in southern California (July- August).