Aloe longistyla Baker

Plants acaulescent, solitary, or 2-3-branched at ground level, rarely 6-10-branched. Leaves 20-30 densely rosulate, arcuate-erect incurved, forming a dense compact rosette; up to 12-15 cm long, 3 cm broad at base, glaucous with a bloom, biconvex in cross section, both surfaces studded with soft to firm white spines springing from a white tubercular base, the lower surface sometimes with an additional row of spines in median line in upper half; the margins with similar deltoid firm to horny white teeth about 3-4 mm long, 5 mm distant, the apices usually terminating in a spine. Inflorescence 1-2, always simple, about 15-20 cm high. Peduncle very stout, 2-3 cm diam., 8-10 cm to base of raceme, with a few ovate-acute sterile bracts. Raceme densely 40-50-flowered, somewhat broadly conical, averaging 11 cm long and broad. Bracts lanceolate-deltoid, acute, sub-scarious or a little fleshy, 25-30 mm long, 12-15 mm broad at base, light brown below, deep brown at apex, many-nerved. Pedicels 6-8 mm long, 2 mm diam. Perianth cylindric, slightly up-curved in upper third, slightly constricted at mouth, 55 mm long, 9 mm diam., pale salmon-pink to rose-red; outer segments free for 13 mm (tube about 42 mm long), about 5-nerved, the nerves confluent and greenish at apex, apices sub-acute, spreading; inner segments themselves free but dorsally adnate to the outer for three-quarters of their length, with thin pale margins and a keel turning greenish at apex, the apices more obtuse and more spreading. Filaments flattened, white within the perianth, the 20 mm exserted portion yellow. Anthers exserted 20 mm, drying and withdrawing within the perianth after dehiscing. Stigma exserted 25 mm and remaining exserted after pollination, the style at this stage 70-75 mm in length. Ovary green, finely 6-grooved, 7 mm long, 4 mm diam.