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ALOE VULGARIS. 
Yellow-flowered Aloe.* 
For Class, Order, Nat. Ord. and Gen. Char. 
See Aloe Socotrina. 
Spec. Char. Leaves sword-shaped, toothed, upright. Stem 
branched. Flowers yellow, in a dense panicle. 
The stem is thick, short, branched, and shrubby, and like the 
leaves abounds in a clammy juice; the leaves are sessile, rising 
nearly erect, from three to four inches broad at their base, and a foot 
long ; lanceolate, acute, smooth, succulent, concave above, and of a 
sea-green colour ; the flower stem rises about three feet in height, 
round, erect, smooth, of a purplish colour, branched at top, and 
terminated by a loose spike of yellow fliowers ; the flowers are nu- 
merous, and stand upon short smooth peduncles, each flower is 
accompanied by a single bractea of a triangular form, membra- 
naceous, and of a brownish colour ; the corolla is monopetalous, ob- 
long, cylindrical, and deeply divided into five segments : the outer 
segments are larger than the inner, ovate, and spreading at the 
border ; the filaments are thread-shaped, the length of the corolla, 
inserted into the receptacle, and crowned with oblong incumbent 
anthers j the germen is oblong, ovate, angular ; style nearly the length 
of the filaments ; stigma simple. 
This species of Aloe, (Vulgaris) is the one described by Sloane in 
his History of Jamaica, as producing the Barbadoes or Hepatic Aloes 
of commerce ; it is a native of the Levant and Barbary, but cultivated 
in the West India Islands. It was found by Dr. Sibthorpe, growing 
spontaneously in the island of Cyprus. Sir. E. Smith has satisfac- 
torily ascertained it to be the true AKqv] of the ancient Greeks. 
The inspissated juice known in commerce under the name of 
Aloes, is the produce of various species of the Aloe plant. In the 
* Fig. a. represents the leaves and part of the root. b. The pistillam. 
VOL. II. P 
