ALOE VULGARIS. ORD. XLVI. Liliacex. | 99 
Gen. Char. Corolla tubular, border spreading, six-cleft, nectariferous at the 
base. Filaments inserted into the receptacle. Capsule superior, oblong, 
three-celled. Seeds several, angular. 
_ Spec. Char. Leaves sword-shaped, toothed, upright. Stem branched. 
Flowers yellow, in a dense panicle. 
THE stem of this species of aloe* is short, thick, shrubby, and branched. 
The leaves are nearly erect, or somewhat spreading, upwards of a foot in 
length, and about four inches broad at their base, lanceolate, acute, smooth, 
succulent, concave above, of a bright sea-green colour, (but when young, often 
spotted with white,) sessile, and crowded on the lower part of the stem. 
The flower-stem rises about three feet in height; it is round, thick, erect, 
smooth, of a purplish colour, branched at top, and terminated by a loose, 
slender spike of bright yellow flowers. The flowers are numerous, and stand 
on short, smooth foot-stalks, each flower: being accompanied by a single 
bractea. The bracteas attached to the flower-stems are triangular, membra- 
naceous, and of a deep brownish colour. The corolla is monopetalous, cy- 
lindrical, oblong, and divided at the margin into six deep segments ; the 
outer segments are larger than the inner, ovate, blunt, and spreading at the 
border. The filaments are thread-shaped, as long, or somewhat longer than 
the corolla, inserted into the receptacle, and furnished with oblong, incum- 
bent anthers. The germen is oblong-ovate, angular, bearing a style nearly 
the length of the stamens, crowned with a small, simple stigma. Figure (a) 
represents the pistil, with the base of the corolla, (6) the same, with the sta- 
mens. . } 
The whole plant abounds with a clammy, bitter, fetid, yellowish juice. 
This plant is a native of the Levant and Barbary; it is also very common 
in the West India Islands, and generally known under the name of Barba- 
does aloe; which, probably, has urisen from its being commonly cultivated 
in the island of Barbadoes, for the purpose of obtaining the aloes of the 
shops, known by the name of hepatic aloes. The different methods em- 
ployed for collecting the juice, and preparing the various kinds of aloes, and 
also their medical properties and uses, have been explicitly detailed in Vol. 
* Itis the addy of the ancient Greeks, and was found by Dr. Sibthorpe, growing 
spontaneously in the island of Cyprus. 
