Aloe ecklonis

This broad-leaved, orange-flowering grass aloe reaching 90 cm in height used to be called Aloe boylei until recently. It is still called that by many who are knowledgeable in the field.

Because this Site is an amateur effort short on access to scientific knowledge other than what is found in openly accessible publications, the SANBI decisions on plant nomenclature are here followed fairly closely, therefore A. ecklonis.

Every plant in nature has its rightful place, an inherent legitimacy in life on earth unaffected by human influence. Every plant name or classification is a human fabrication serving human needs; and we have so many of those!

Nature is always freely evolving and more complex at a realistic level than manmade theories or knowledge elements. Theories are simplifications of natural phenomena, discarded components considered less important in the context. Even tested theories hardening into firm knowledge follow nature, do not lead it. Our knowledge is about the world, not valuable when no longer true to it. This causes the requirement of occasional upgrading and adaptation of knowledge to follow where evolution and clarification of reality continually lead.

People strive for absolute clarity in their knowledge of important things; some personality types or human traits more assiduous in this than others, intolerant regarding ambiguity. This means we prefer the answers arrived at to remain immutable, trustworthy and stable, in spite of our general acceptance of the tenet that change is the only constant, that the wisdom of this world will pass; or so some of us say.

Fortunately, the grey areas in knowledge about nature are usually better coloured than grey, as is A. ecklonis, also sometimes known as A. boylei!

A. ecklonis leaves are deciduous, new leaves growing in spring. They are broad, angled out fairly erectly with small teeth along the margins, triangular and white. The leaves are sometimes broader, sometimes with bigger, smaller or differently spaced marginal teeth, sometimes the leaves are nearly flat or incurving along their margins, sometimes wavy or straight, sometimes spotted near the base on the outer surfaces and sometimes attenuating in their tips.

These latter “sometimes” characteristics relate to some of the differences between the earlier two species, now relegated to the sometimes category, aka accepted intraspecies differences. Thus ends the war between taxon lumpers and splitters… only as far as this skirmish is concerned.

The species distribution of A. ecklonis lies in an inland north-south strip from Limpopo and Mpumalanga to the Eastern Cape, including westerly parts of KwaZulu-Natal, easterly parts of the Free State, a small part of southeastern Gauteng near Devon and Leandra and parts of Lesotho and Swaziland.

The habitat is summer rainfall grasslands of the eastern escarpment from near sea level to 2500 m. The plants usually grow in heavy clay soils, often where the ground has been disturbed and even thriving among alien plant infestation.

Grassland grazing by stock tends to reduce population numbers of these aloes. Contrarily, road and rail reserves where farm animals are usually excluded, tend to retain, even boost these aloes well. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Craib, 2005; Van Wyk and Smith, 2003; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).