PlantFiles: Giant Quiver Tree
Aloe pillansii

In (almost) inland SoCal the 4 nights in January '07 of down to 24F did some serious damage to the leaves. But the plants recovered fast.

Jordi

Aloe Pillansii occurs from Cornell's Kop in the Richtersveld northwards to the Brandberg in Namibia. This range has an altitude of 250 upto 1000 Meter. The plant is regarded as endangered due to mining and illegal collecting. It is a plant easily grown from seed. Plants grow reasonably good in cultivation in winter raifall regions, provided that they are protected from frost.

This is the holy grail of tree aloes and is one of the most beautiful aloes over all. It has neat, small, wide arched, fat leaves of silvery-grey ribbed with pale yellow spines all along the edges. The trunk is smooth and fat, similar to A dichotoma, and can get quite tall- the tallest of all the Aloes potentially growing up to 45'. However, this is also one of the rarest aloes now, having been so overcollected from its native Africa that it's nearly extinct. Finding a specimen is exciting, as I did recently in a nursery in Pasadena (of course it wasn't for sale, and if it had, I wouldn't have been able to afford it- even the seed of this aloe is costly).

Appears to be a winter grower... excess summer water can rot these, but some water does result in a slight bit of growth in the warmer months... but plant definitely grows faster in the cool season, at least in southern CAlifornia.

Freeze in Los Angeles Jan 07 at 27F for 5 hours did damage the leaf tips of my 3' tall seedling. It looks like the plant will be fine, though... just will look pretty sad for a few years.

2011 Kew Gardens has just come out with an all-inclusive plant names list, and this plant has been demoted to a subspecies of Aloe dichotoma... sad.