Aloe plicatilis (4509108098)

Description:

Description: Aloe plicatilis, the Fan Aloe, is a species of Aloe indigenous to a few mountains in South Africa's Western Cape. It is unique in having a beautiful fan-like arrangement to its leaves, and unusual among Aloes for the way that it grows as a branching tree. In the wild, Aloe plicatilis is confined to a tiny area in the Western Cape, between the town of Franschhoek and Elandskloof. Here it grows in well-drained, sandy, slightly acidic soil on steep, rocky, south-facing slopes. It also seems to have a very clumped distribution pattern, with seventeen different populations that are often separated from each other by over 10 km. Its entire habitat lies within the fynbos biome, where it is the only tree aloe. The fynbos biome consists of dense Mediterranean-type vegetation and a climate of dry hot summers and cold wet winters. Few other aloes naturally occur in this corner of South Africa, the exceptions being the Fynbos Aloe, Table Mountain's Aloe commixta, and the Fan Aloe's rare sister species Aloe haemanthifolia. The Fan Aloe is threatened by a growing international trade, in which wild specimens are sometimes illegally collected and exported. In the local Afrikaans language, the Fan Aloe is commonly known as the Kaapse Kokerboom (Cape Quivertree) or the Waaier Aalwyn (Fan Aloe). Date: 15 March 2010, 07:36. Source: Aloe plicatilis. Author: Leonora Enking from West Sussex, England. Camera location50° 49′ 41.04″ N, 0° 28′ 25.22″ W View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap 50.828066; -0.473672.