126 Transactions of the Boyal Society of South Africa. 
size, the spotted corolla, the brown margin, the acuminate lobes of the 
outer corona and the longer inner corona lobes. 
Plants brought from the Nieuwveld Mountains near Beaufort West ; 
flowering in my garden at Capetown, March, 1912. Marloth, 5116. 
LILIACE^. 
Aloe purpubascens, Haw. 
This species is somewhat allied to A. succotrina, Lam., the habitat of 
both species being unknown until quite recently, In fact some authors 
state that the home of A. succotrina was the island of Socotra and that the 
drug aloes was manufactured from it. Both statements are wrong, for 
Cape aloes is prepared from A. ferox, and the home of A. succotrina is the 
Cape peninsula, where it occurs on a field of boulders about 1,000 feet 
above Newlands, on the rocks of the Little Lion's Head, near Hout Bay 
and in the scrub of the hills above Fishhoek Bay. (See Marloth, in Trans. 
S.A. Phil. Soc, vol. xvi., p. 213.) 
When the latter species was rediscovered in 1905, after being lost for 
nearly two centuries, while the locality of the former remained still un- 
known, the question of the identity of the two species was raised again, 
for various authors look upon them merely as varieties or even as quite 
identical (see Flor. Cap. vi., 322), while others, e.g. Berger,"' maintain their 
validity as distinct species. 
We are now in a position to settle both questions, for A. purpurascens 
occurs on the coast of Hermanns, on rocks near the Klein River mouth, 
and it is certainly quite distinct from A. succotrina. There is a great 
similarity in the foliage, although the leaves of A. purpiirascens are larger 
and broader at the base than those of A. succotrina and more glaucous. 
The flowers, however, are quite different. While those of A. succotrina 
are cylindrical with a narrow mouth, owing to the connivent points of the 
perianth segments, those of A. purpurascens have a widened mouth, owing 
to the recurving of the apices of the segments ; thus in the latter species 
the mouth is wider than the tube, while in the former the base is the 
widest part. It is also interesting to find that there is some chemical 
difference as well, for while the flowers of A. purpurasce^is stain a solution 
of formaldehyde in which they are preserved, purplish, those of A. succo- 
trina impart only a pink colour to the liquid. The leaves of both species 
turn dark red on drying. 
Unfortunately some of the illustrations and statements published in 
various works are incorrect or based on hybridised plants. Berger states 
in a private letter to us that the figures in Das Pflanzenreich " are only 
* Engler, Das Pflanzenreich, iv. 38, iii. 2, p. 284. 
