Aloaceae

Abstract

Small herbaceous shrubby or pachycaul arborescent L-succulent perennials, rarely with a bulbous base; R fibrous, usually terete, sometimes tuberously thickened or fusiform; stem stout or slender, simple or branched, erect, decumbent or pendulous, short to several m tall, sometimes so short that the plants are described as acaulescent; L simple, alternate, amplexicaul, linear, deltoid, falcate, lanceolate or triangular, crowded in dense Ros at tips of stems and Br or at ground-level, sometimes widely spaced along stem, persistent for several years, usually distinctly succulent and mottled with whitish spots or striations, often prickly along the margins and sometimes on both sides, tip usually ending in a weak to fairly strong Sp, surfaces smooth or rough; L tissue usually with coloured exudate when broken; Inf racemes, panicles or rarely spikes, axillary, bracteate, peduncle scape-like, massive or slender; Fl hermaphroditic, 3-merous throughout, red, orange, yellow or white, rarely green; Tep in 2 whorls of 3, petaloid and often fleshy, connivent or connate into a straight or curved sometimes ventricose tube, limb ± regular or sometimes bilabiate; St 6, free, Anth with 2 thecae, opening by longitudinal slits, included or exserted; Ov compound, 3-locular, superior, placentation axile, sometimes with septal Nee, each locule with numerous ovules; Sty terminal, with punctate or discoid Sti; Fr loculicidal capsules, rarely fleshy and dehiscent berries; Se usually flattened or winged. — Cytology: x = 7, with a distinctive basic karyotype of 4 long and 3 short chromosomes. Most species are diploid, but some polyploidy and aneuploidy occur, esp. in Aloe and Haworthia, as summarized by Riley & Majumdar (1979).