768 ORD. XLVI. Ziliacew. © aor PERFOLIATA SOCOTORINA. 
THE root is perennial, strong, fibrous: the flower-stems rise 
three or four feet in height, and are smooth, erect, of a glaucous 
ereen colour, arid towards the top beset with ovate bracteal scales: 
the leaves are numerous, and proceed from the upper part of the 
root: they are narrow, tapering, thick, or fleshy, succulent, 
smooth, glaucous, and beset at the edges with spiny teeth: the 
flowers are produced in terminal spikes, and of a purple or reddish 
colour: there is no calyx: the corolla is monopetalous, tubular, 
nectariferous, cut into six narrow leaves which separate at the 
mouth: the filaments are six, tapering, yellowish, ; inserted into 
the receptacle, and furnished with oblong orange-coloured an- 
there: the germen is oblong, supporting a simple slender style, 
of the length of the filaments, and terminated by an obtuse 
stigma: “the capsule is oblong and divided into three cells, with as 
‘many valves, and contains many angular seeds, 
It is a native of ‘Africa, and flowers most part of the year. 
Not i -which is the inspissated juice 
of the plant here reprecnted: but also the hepatic or Barbadoes 
aloes is directed for officinal use in our pharmacopeias. This 
however being obtained from another variety of the same species, 
viz. the aloe (* vera) foltis spinosis confertis dentatis vaginantibus 
planis maculatis L. it has not been thought necessary to give a 
‘separate figure of it here. _ Besides, it appears probable from the 
observations of Professor Murray, that different species as well as _ 
varieties of aloe would furnish the various kinds of this drug, and 
that Linnzus by referring these sorts to those plants, the recent 
juice of which seemed respectively to correspond the nearest: to 
them in taste, might easily be misled; for Murray upon tasting the 
fresh juice of many different species of aloe, sometimes found it 
bitter, and at other times (or devoid of bitterness. * 
* See Commentatio de succi alots umari | initia. in te Dies. tom. 2. p. 488. 
This author found the bitterest species to be the following: 1. Aloe elongata, 
floribus’ ‘Spicatis tubuloso-triquetris subringentibus oblique dependentibus, foliis 
aggregatis dentatospinosis. It seems to be the variety x of the spec. Pisit. and is 
