ISI 2026-11. Aloe ribauensis T.A. McCoy, Rulkens & Baptista.
This choice species was described in this Journal in 2014 (C&SJ 86(2): 48 ? 53. It is among the few Aloe species endemic to Mozambique including A. cannellii L.C.Leach, A. decurva Reynolds, A. mossuriliensis Ellert, and A. torrei I.Verd. & Christian. Another aloe that occurs in Mozambique is Aloe mawii Christian which also ranges into neighboring Malawi to the W and Tanzania to the N. Like that species, the inflorescences are distinctive in not being erect. In A. mawiithey spread horizontally outward and have secund flowers, arranged pointing upward, available to pollinating sunbirds. The inflorescences of A. ribauensis are also not erect and can be solitary or have a side branch. Instead of being mostly horizontal, these are decurved, that is, they arch and bend over, bearing the shorter racemes on the pendent portion. Also, instead of being secund, the flowers are arranged radially, spreading in all directions from the axis of the raceme, as in most aloes. The flowers are larger and darker orange to red than those of A. mawii but share the robust, contrasting, dark purple filaments that are exserted more than half the length of the corolla in a brush-like arrangement that functions just like a brush in dusting the sunbirds that visit to probe the flowers for nectar. Not only can the sunbirds perch atop the arched peduncle to reach most of the flowers in the basal portion of the raceme, but they may also perch on the sterile portion at the apex of the raceme to reach the more distal flowers. We offer rooted plants from tissue culture of HBG 143917, originally initiated from a young raceme of a plant from aloe collector Daniel Gledhill. Daniel grows one of the few plants originally tissue cultured from a particularly showy, red-flowered form collected by Tom McCoy, July 3, 2013, at the type locality: Mt. Ribaue, Nampula Province, Mozambique, at 1000m on granite.
Photo © 2026 by John Trager, Photo © 2026 by Tom McCoy.
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