Aloe ferox after a leaf harvest

This Aloe ferox plant has a reduced rosette from the harvest that was made of mature green leaves at the base of the rosette. The short stub remains can be seen where leaves have been removed for collecting the juice.

A large market for A. ferox products exists in cosmetics and medicines. Rural people share a little in the commercial benefits by cutting leaves and stacking them in inverted rosette shaped heaps on the ground around a shallow hole where the valued aloe juice drips out from the leaf wounds for collection later.

The dry leaves lower down that were not removed from the very young plant, can be seen at the stem base. Similar harvest markings are evident on the tall specimen of A. ferox shown in this Album. In that case the harvesting stopped when the plant became too tall, as lugging ladders around in the veld is mostly too onerous for workers who do this work on foot (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Reynolds, 1974).