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NOTES ON ALOE SUCCOTRINA, Lam. 

 By K. Marloth, Ph.D. 



(Bead June 28, 1905.) 



On a previous occasion I drew attention to the fact that the real 

 habitat of most South African succulents is not known or recorded, 

 they having been introduced into European gardens one or two 

 hundred years ago, and figured and described from cultivated 

 plants. 



One of the most striking examples of this kind is the species of 

 Aloe called Aloe succotrina, because it was thought at the time that 

 this plant furnished the drug which came from the island of Socotra. 

 That error has been rectified since, for the plant which bears the 

 name does not occur at Socotra, quite another one supplying 

 the drug. 



It was then surmised that the plant to which this name had 

 been given by mistake, and which is still being cultivated at home 

 under this name, might have come from South Africa, but as no 

 botanist had ever recorded it from here, its origin remained a 

 puzzle. 



Some thirty years ago Dr. Bolus collected a plant in the Eastern 

 Province, which Mr. Baker at Kew took at first to be the real 

 A. succotrina, Lam., as figured by Commelinus * in 1697. Later 

 on he recognised it to be A. pluridens, Haw. (Flor. Cap., vol. vi., 

 p. 323) ; hence the true A. succotrina remained as unknown as 

 before. 



Unfortunately the matter has been complicated a little more in 

 Dr. Schonland's paper referred to above. The author, not knowing 

 the real A. succotrina, came to the conclusion that both names 



* I am taking these statements from Dr. Schonland's paper "On some South 

 African Species of Aloe," published in the Records of the Albany Museum, vol. L, 

 p. 292, 1905. 



