Aloes of Madagascar

[Wiebe]

At this moment in full flower one of the grassaloes from Madagascar A. albida. A surprise today was to see a bud in A. laeta; according to the authors of the recent book on these plants 'one of the most beautiful Madagascan Aloe'. This is a self sown 6 year old seedling; becasue it is still quite small I did not yet expect to get it in flower.

Wiebe

[Tobias]

My A. albida is flowering to, but it is a smaller specimen than yours and has only one inflorescence.
By the way, A. albida comes from South Africa. The species from Madagascar is A. albiflora.

It's good to see that A. laeta can flower as a small plant and I agree to the authors that it's one of the true beauties in the whole genus.

Regards
Tobias

[Wiebe]

By the way, A. albida comes from South Africa. The species from Madagascar is A. albiflora.

Yes, you're right. I mixed these 2 up.

Wiebe

[Liz M]

There was a thread last November about Aloe albiflora, one of the Mikes started it.

This is mine at the moment, I got it last year when it flowered with three or four flowers. There is another bud coming as well, this year.

[Colin Walker]

G'day Wiebe,

Aloe albida is of particular interest because its primary pollinator is not a bird. If you look at the flower in your excellent pic you'll see that structurally it's similar to those of haworthias, and these too are pollinated by insects.

There are about 6 species of grass aloes that have similar flower structures.

There's a paper on this, but I can't quickly find it, but will do so asap.

[Colin Walker]

The paper I referrred to earlier is:

Hargreaves, A.L., Harder,L.D. & Johnson,S.D. Aloe inconspicua: the first record of an exclusively insect-pollinated aloe. S. Afr. J. Bot., 74: 606-612, 2008.

So I got this wrong, the study was on A. inconspicua not A. albida. However, the authors suggest that the following species of grass aloes are putatively bee-pollinated: A. albida, bowiea, minima, myriacantha, parviflora, saundersiae and inconspicua, together with Chortolirion angolense.

As I implied earlier, virtually all other aloes have coloured tepals (perianth lobes) that attractive principally bird pollinators.

[Colin Walker]

Wiebe,

BTW, forgot to say, IHMO you've done really well to get A. laeta to flower. I found this one of THE most difficult aloes to grow and consequently it's no longer with me but is sitting in that great herbarium in the sky. The only other aloe that's caused me significant growing grief, and continues to do so, is A. slandeniana, that we've discussed here in the past. My plant is STILL sulking two years since I acquired it.

[attilathethumb]

i like aloes are all of them medicinal

[Wiebe]

Thanks for your remarks Colin. The flowers of the A albida indeed look like Haworthia flowers. Can you make a pdf from the article you mentioned and sent this to me? I have 2 A. laeta plants but the other one is smaller and shows no sign of buds. I have 4 plants of A. sladenia; they flowered last year but I was nog able to get any seeds. Maybe better next year. A. dinteri is another challenge; I lost one of the 2 plants I had. So again I have to search for a second clone. Anyone here?

Wiebe

[Phil White]

G'day Wiebe,

Aloe albida is of particular interest because its primary pollinator is not a bird. If you look at the flower in your excellent pic you'll see that structurally it's similar to those of haworthias, and these too are pollinated by insects.

There are about 6 species of grass aloes that have similar flower structures.

There's a paper on this, but I can't quickly find it, but will do so asap.

Hi Colin,
The pollinator of the Aloe is indeed interesting.
I am also interested in what are the known pollinators for Haworthia as I have never seen anything published on what insects pollinate Haworthias...........but then I have probably not been reading the correct journal/books or ? Are Haworthia flowers too small for Sun birds ?