^{(Photograph = Aloe ferox flowers, Dogtooth)}

Introduction

Aloe is a large genus spread from South Africa and Namibia to Madagascar and on to Saudi Arabia. Some of the species grow 2- or 3-m tall from a single stem. These are tree aloes.

The Details

A. ferox is a tree aloe found across the southern tip of Africa, from KwaZulu-Natal to the Western Cape. A. ferox is a handsome plant that makes a single trunk to up to 3-m tall. The sometimes blue-green, succulent leaves are edged with dark spines. It has spikes of orange flowers that stand up straight.

In the wild, the trunk is covered with dead leaves that form a skirt below the crown. A. ferox often grows on rocky hills or in grassy areas, both of which can suffer wild fires. It is easy to imagine the sheath of dead leaves bursting into an explosive fire when confronted with a wildfire.

However, one scientific paper claims that the leaves insulate the main trunk from fire heat and actually help the A. ferox plants survive wild fires. The paper even provides survival data from several fires in which clothed A. ferox survived better than plants with naked stems. The whole idea seems unlikely. Dry, dead leaves burn; don’t they? But Nature has many unlikely surprises.

Additional Reading: Dead Leaves and Aloe Survival