Aloe pruinosa Reynolds

Plant solitary with stem up to 30 cm high. Leaves 16-24, densely rosulate, lanceolate-attenuate, up to 70 cm tong, 8-10 cm broad at base, spreading and slightly recurved; upper surface canaliculate, green, with numerous white spots throughout, the spots somewhat 'H' shaped, scattered, or sometimes confluent into a series of more or less wavy irregular interrupted transverse bands; tower surface convex, the spots more copious, more elliptic, and in more defined transverse bands; margins sinuate-dentate, the teeth deltoid, pungent, pale pinkish-brown, up to 4 mm long, 15-20 mm distant, slightly deflexed, smaller and more crowded near base, larger and more distant upwards. Inflorescence up to 2 metres high, branched above the middle, with about 11 arcuate erect branches, the 1-3 lowest with 1-2 branchlets forming a rather compact panicle; the lowest branches subtended at base by sub-scarious acuminate bracts up to 10-13 cm long. Peduncle flattened and up to 4 cm diam. low down, gradually semi-terete upwards, brown, copiously covered with a greyish powdery substance. Racemes cylindric-acuminate, the terminal up to 20 cm long, 7 cm broad, the lateral shorter and usually about 10-12 cm long, unicoloured, the buds sub-erect and rather congested, gradually laxer downwards, with the open flowers about 10 mm distant, cernuous to sub-pendulous, dull dark brownish-red (Pompeian Red to Madder Red R.C.S. XIII), heavily coated with a greyish powdery substance. Bracts narrowly linear-lanceolate, acuminate, spreading and recurved, about 7-9-nerved, as long as the pedicels or slightly longer. Pedicels the lowest 1012 mm long. Perianth 30-33 mm long, with a sub-globose basal swelling 8 mm diam., constricted to 5 mm above the ovary, thence rather sharply decurved, enlarging towards the throat (8 mm), and laterally compressed to about 5 mm.; outer segments free for 7 mm from apex, very obscurely many-nerved, with a 1 mm broad white marginal border, and with sub-acute slightly spreading apices; inner segments free to base, but dorsally adnate to the outer for their greater length, broader than the outer, with the apices more obtuse and slightly more spreading, and with the dull white marginal border twice as broad as the outer. Filaments flattened, the 3 inner narrower and lengthening in advance of the 3 outer. Anthers the 3 inner and 3 outer in turn exserted 1-2 mm Stigma at length exserted 1-2 mm and remaining exserted after pollination. Ovary 8 mm long, 3 mm diam. at base, slightly tapering into the style, finely 6-grooved, green. The leaf sap dries deep violet.