PlantFiles: French Aloe
Aloe pluridens

One of my favourite tree aloes. Its important to remember that this plant enjoys shelter- it is not a creature of the open plains and barren hillside like many others tree aloes- it is native to bushy areas where it gets some shade and cold protection.
Here in coastal Otago, New Zealand, roughly zone 9, I would not expose it to below 0C temps without a frost cloth or shelter from another tree, at least while small. It would survive, but the ornate leaves would certainly suffer damage.
Mine are small and still potted and are enjoying our non-xeriscape conditions, putting on a lot of growth with the abundant moisture.
They are oddly charming with their prehistoric looks and affinity with other, non-succulent plants- they are one of the easier aloes to fit into a general garden.
It's a gratifyingly fast grower with consistent watering, gaining height even faster than my barberae or speciosa.
In this southern winter of 09 (colder than normal and soggy) the pluridens I had planted out sustained considerable damage to it's leaves, even with the protection of a cabbage tree (cordyline) overhead. It's easily bitten by cold/hot wind, hail and just general winter conditions, so maybe keep them potted unless you have REALLY good shelter from rough coastal conditions.

Very attracitve tree aloe, sometimes solitary, but usually branching... great salmon-colored flowers in winter, though. Flowers are usually branched and grow about 2' above the head of the plant. This plant seems to hold a much larger number of leaves than most other tree aloes, though the leaves are thinner (up to 2' long). Easy to grow from cuttings I found. So far this is uncommon in botanical gardens in the non-hybrid form. First picture I loaded above is a hybrid it turns out. The 'pure' plant is known for its recurved leaves (curving elegant downward- not up as in that first photo I added). Solitary plants somewhat resemble small palms since they have similar sillohuettes, and carry so many leaves and have thin, tall stems that do not hold the old leaves (bare). Leaves have numerous, closely spaced small white teeth (were the name 'pluridens' comes from).

South African native.