aloe vera and aloe ferox continued

Department of Utter Confusion is - Aloe vera and Aloe ferox on the Internet. According to some of the ads, a.vera is the second coming in medicine. It’s reputed to cure acid reflux, burns, sunburn, gastric distress, irritable colon, cracked, dry feet. AND improve your love life.  The claim is made that Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know about this. ……Too late Big Pharma..


Aloe ferox, also known as Bitter Aloe is a purgative. It may well work on burns. A. arborescens (remember him?) also performs just fine on burns. Many of the aloes seem to create a sort of Liquid Skin effect if you rub the burn with the gelatinous part of the leaf. Aloes have a bitter yellow sap under the skin, then a gelatinous layer.

In S. Africa, a.ferox is made into a conserve--- something you’d serve with meat or poultry the way we use cranberry sauce. The bitter sap is drained off, and the gelatinous part of the leaf is used. Since ferox grows rapidly with water, and the leaves are thick, harvesting the plant for jam is not as mad as it sounds. Where would tequila be without agaves? What would have happened to Isaak Dinesen if she’d grown aloes for jam? No Out of Africa, no fame and fortune, but a prosperous farm?
The recipe is found on p. 129 of Aloes in Southern Africa – by two S. Africans, Gideon Smith and Braam van Wyk.  (See  Aloe Preserve.) This may not be the definitive book on aloes, but it’s close.

Confusion on the Net- aloe ferox and aloe vera

Aloe vera- notice the color of the prickles along the edge of the leaves are white. The leaves are slimmer than those of a. ferox.

The prickles on these leaves of a. ferox are red, and wickedly hooked. Ferox means 'fierce".
                                                                                  aloe ferox

STICKS ON FIRE Euphorbia tirucalli

Here's Sticks On Fire used in the landscape (devoted readers will remember Robert Dean's design in Baldwin's book Designing With Succulents.)

A blaze of color to end 2009 -STICKS ON FIRE

Euphorbia tirucallis

If your landscape was looking dour today---after all it’s raining , grey, cold--- warm your thoughts with this unlikely looking succulent. Native to the Arabian Peninsula, it’s tough as an old boot. One here lived in a forgotten wall pot for a year, surviving on fog and our scanty rainfall. Right now its being pampered with a larger pot, and water. Putting out new growth from the top of its’ head----bright coral --- Mr. Invincible.


Sticks On Fire is also called Pencil Bush, Milk Bush, and Naked Lady (why?). Used to treat warts; well,okay), rheumatism (do Not Try This At Home) toothache (God forbid)

Most euphorbia have toxic juice and this one is no exception. It grows like crazy in India, Africa, Brazil and Indonesia. So much so, that e. tirucalli has been seriously proposed as bio diesel fuel. (3 gals. per acre. ) Have they considered toxic fumes? Somehow, used cooking oil seems  less edgy but possibly less---lethal

E. tirucallis grows well and happily in so Cal, and is dazzling in a well done landscape plan like Dean’s. (See blog A Succulent Classic Perennial Border 12/16/09). You can buy it in a 15 gallon pot for around $20.00,  Enough to make a Statement.





                            

In style

 If you can't get enough of this year's shades of purple, violet, lilac and lavender this with it  Echeveria  Break of Day,is one to add to your life.If you plant it so it's back lighted, the colors in the leaves show to the best advantage. The other echeveria with the lavender hued leaves appears in the excellent  photo by Rob Durston , and in the a much less exciting, home made  photo. Durston  used a filter to bring up the color--au natural is a bit less lavender ( See  Echeveria links)

Echeverias come mostly from Mexico, and compared to their European cousins the sempervivae, grow larger and reproduce more slowly. Echeverias are not such a good bet for green roofs, though they might do well if watered 2 to 3 times a summer. After all, the Huntington Gardens sprinkles their famous Cactus Garden.   ( I was shocked, shocked at this procedure!)

Another lavender leaved echeveria

This one can look murky if it gets too much sun.

A kalanchoe with purple to brown leaves. Very vigorous, cold tolerant