Plant succulent, acaulescent, freely suckering and forming dense groups. Leaves 10-14, densely rosulate, lanceolate-attenuate, up to 22 cm long, 5-6 cm broad; upper surface dull green, flat near base, slightly canaliculate upwards, with numerous oval white spots more or less confluent and arranged into a series of irregular undulating transverse bands; lower surface convex, obscurely lineate, sometimes without spots, usually clearly or obscurely spotted, the oval white spots more or less arranged in well-defined undulating transverse bands; margins sinuate-dentate, with deltoid pungent light brown teeth 4-5 mm long, 8-12 mm distant, smaller and more crowded near apex, the interspaces rounded. Inflorescence usually about 66 cm high, divaricately branched from the middle with 5-7 arcuate-erect branches, the lowest sometimes with 1-2 branchlets, and subtended at base by rather fleshy attenuate bracts 5-6 cm long, 15-20 mm broad, the bracts many-nerved, the lateral racemes more or less as long as the terminal. Peduncle slightly flattened and about 14 mm diam. low down, more terete upwards, brown, covered with a greyish powdery substance. Racemes cylindric slightly acuminate, about 20-25 cm long, 7 cm diam., laxly about 30-flowered, the buds slightly denser, somewhat greenish, gradually laxer downwards with the lowest flowers coral-red, 15-30 mm distant. Pedicels up to 15 mm long, slightly longer in the fruit. Bracts deltoid-acuminate, spreading and recurved, thin sub-scarious many-nerved, as long as the pedicels or slightly longer. Perianth coral-red, 30-33 mm long, with a sub-globose basal swelling 9-10 mm diam., constricted above the ovary to 5-6 mm diam., thence decurved and enlarging towards the throat, slightly compressed laterally, the mouth open; outer segments free for 10-11 mm, with 1 mm wide white marginal border and sub-acute slightly spreading apices, obscurely 5-nerved, the nerves confluent at apex; inner segments free, but dorsally adnate to the outer for their greater length, broader and with more obtuse more spreading apices than the outer, the white marginal border twice as broad. Filaments flattened, the 3 inner narrower and lengthening in advance of the 3 outer. Anthers the 3 inner and the 3 outer in turn exserted 3-4 mm Stigma at length exserted 2-4 mm, and remaining exserted after pollination. Ovary 8 mm long, 3.5 mm diam. slightly tapering into the style, finely 6-grooved, green.
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This aloe typically forms large dense colonies of up to 100 plants. Leaves are usually clearly spotted in transverse bands on the lower surface. Inflorescences are up to 0.66 m high and widely branched from about the middle with long, wide and divaricate branches so that the inflorescence is often wider than it is high. Flowers are 30-33 mm long and coral-red, with a 1 mm wide white border on the outer perianth segments.
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