Aloe claviflora Burch.

Plant succulent, acaulescent or with procumbent stems 10-20 cm long, usually forming hollow circular groups 1-2 met. diam. Leaves 30-40 in a decumbent dense rosette, the lowest arcuate-erect, the lateral falcately upturned, ovate-lanceolate, about 20 cm long, 6-8 cm broad at base; upper surface flat to slightly convex, glaucous; lower surface convex, glaucous, 1-2-carinate in upper third, the keel armed with 4-6 isolated brownish spines 2-4 mm long; margins armed with pungent brownish isolated teeth 2-4 mm long about 10 mm distant, the interspaces straight, the colour of the leaf. Inflorescence up to 50 cm long, 1-2 from a rosette, simple or bifurcate, sometimes 3-4-branched, obliquely (almost horizontally) disposed. Peduncle stout, 20-30 cm long below the raceme, sterile bracteate, the bracts ovate-acuminate thin scarious white, about 15 mm broad, 25 mm long, about 12-nerved. Racemes densely multiflowered, cylindric-acuminate, 20-30 cm long, buds and younger flowers red with a bloom, greenish tipped, older flowers paler, eventually turning lemon-yellow to ivory after pollination. Bracts usually narrowly ovate-acute, thin scarious white, reflexed, about 15 mm long, 6-8 mm broad, 5-10-nerved. Pedicels 7-10 mm long. Perianth clavate-cylindrical, 30-40 mm long (mostly about 35 mm), about 10 mm diam. at widest part, roundly trigonous near throat, gradually tapering into the pedicel; outer segments free for 1/4-1/2 their length, with 3 greenish nerves confluent at apex, apices sub-acute, spreading; inner segments free, but dorsally adnate to the outer for about half their length, broader than the outer, with white margins and 3 congested nerves forming a keel reddish in lower two-thirds turning greenish upwards, apices more obtuse and more spreading than the outer. Filaments pale yellow throughout, flattened, the 3 inner narrower and lengthening in advance of the 3 outer. Anthers the 3 inner and 3 outer in turn exserted 10-15 mm Stigma at length exserted 15 mm and remaining exserted after pollination. Ovary 8 mm long, 3 mm diam., finely 6-grooved, lemon-yellow to olive-green.