Aloe kniphofioides Baker

Plants acaulescent, solitary, with an ovoid bulb-like swelling underground, and fusiform roots. Leaves multifarious, about 20, narrowly linear, 20-30 cm long, 6-7 mm broad; upper surface flat to slightly canaliculate; lower surface convex; both surfaces green, without spots; margins entire or minutely dentate, the teeth white, retrospectively uncate, larger and more crowded low down, more distant and obsolescent upwards; below ground level the leaves imbricate, dilating to 25-30 mm wide at base, about 5 mm thick, and forming a distinct ovoid bulb-like swelling 6-8 cm long, 5-6 cm diam. Inflorescence simple, rarely 2, up to 55 cm tall, standing out above the leaf apices. Peduncle terete, 4-5 mm diam., sterile bracteate from the middle upwards, the bracts brownish, scarious, ovate-acuminate, about 15 mm long, 7 mm broad, 7-9-nerved. Racemes 10-15 cm long, about 12-16 flowered, the buds more crowded, the flowers more laxly disposed, scarlet with greenish tips. Bracts narrowly ovate-acuminate, up to 15 mm long, thin, scarious, pale brownish, 7-9-nerved, a little longer than their pedicels. Pedicels lowest up to 15 mm long. Perianth cylindrical, slightly curved, 35-50 mm long, 45-50 mm the average; outer segments free for 6-8 mm, apices sub-acute, straight, obscurely nerved; inner segments dorsally cohering to the outer for their greater length, broader than the outer, the free portion with a greenish keel, the apices almost rounded. Filaments flattened, the 3 inner narrower and lengthening in advance of the 3 outer. Genitals not or very shortly exserted. Ovary 6-7 mm long, 2-5 mm diam.