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Aloe barbarae is Africa's tallest aloe reaching
some 45' in height and truly deserving the description of a tree aloe.
It has traditionally been called Aloe bainesii but the name barbarae
one of South Africa's premier plant collectors after Mary Elizabeth
Barber has taken precedence. It is also called boomaalwyn in Afrikaans
and inKalane enkulu in Zulu which means 'the big one.' After it was
first found by Barber and named for her by Dr. Robert Allen Dyer, Director
of the Botanical Research Institute in Praetoria, it was found by the
well known traveller, explorer and painter Mr. Thomas Baines in 1873
in KwaZulu-Natal. He sent samples to Joseph Hooker at Kew who named
it in his honor, but being a later name it had to give way to 'barbarae.'
The tall branching grayish-brown trunk forms a rounded crown of branches
each ending in a rosette of dark green recurved and channeled leaves
which are smooth-surfaced and armed with small white teeth on the margins.
The flowers are rose-pink and appear mostly during June and July. Its
habitat is coastal forests and tall bush and inland dry valleys ranging
from South Africa into Mozambique.and East Africa. With a trunk diameter
of up to 9' it is a beautiful and impressive plant.
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