Aloe ecklonis inflorescence

The fairly large flowers of Aloe ecklonis grow in compact, nearly flat-topped heads, coloured salmon-pink, red, orange or yellow; the salmon pink ones most common. Each long-stalked flower becomes from 2 cm to 4 cm long; the earlier A. boylei type having the longer perianths.

The flower is green-tipped from its erect bud beginnings to the pendulous open flower stage. The anthers are exserted in open flowers or not. In picture they are orange, well below the green perianth tips. In picture the inner perianth segments are greener and more white-rimmed at the tips than the outer ones.

Acutely pointed floral bracts subtend the pedicels, exceeding bud length in the early stages at the top of the inflorescence. Sterile, i.e. flowerless bracts also continue below the inflorescence on the stalk. The bract is broad-based, thin and papery, its white margins wider in the lower, non-tapering parts. The central green parts of the bracts are greener along their veins.

Flowering happens late in spring through summer in the extended species and across the regions where the plants grow. While A. ecklonis and A. boylei are these days merged as A. ecklonis, there is also a strong similarity with the inflorescence and flowers of A. cooperi (Craib, 2005; Van Wyk and Smith, 2003; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist).