Aloe vanbalenii

Aloe vanbalenii is a sometimes stemless leaf succulent that often grows dense clumps of leaf rosettes on short creeping stems. The plants are about 1 m tall.

The leaves are a special feature of this plant's attraction. In full sunlight the leaves are usually reddish or coppery brown, otherwise bright green. They typically recurve, some leaf-tips often touching the ground. The succulent blades are deeply channelled, bearing marginal teeth only. Leaf length may reach 100 cm, the width up to 15 cm. The leaf sap is pale honey-coloured.

The inflorescence is usually two- or three-branched, the peduncle deep red-brown. The racemes are narrowly cone-shaped, up to 30 cm long. Flower colours vary from buff yellow to yellow-orange and even dull reddish, sometimes bicoloured. The perianths are tubular, about 3,5 cm long. Flowering happens from late autumn to after midwinter.

This aloe is found in nature in northeastern KwaZulu-Natal, the Lebombo Mountains and the Black Mfolozi River Valley, and in the far southeast of Mpumalanga near Piet Retief; also in eSwatini but overall a range-restricted species. 

The habitat is frost free sour bushveld, sunny, flat and rocky places near rivers, as well as on rocky outcrops at elevations from 300 m to 400 m. Most of the about 900 mm annual rainfall is received here in summer when it is hot. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century. 

The species hybridises naturally with A. marlothii. The plant is a common garden subject, the cooked leaves sometimes eaten as a vegetable (Frandsen, 2017; Van Wyk and Smith, 2003; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).