Aloe Family

• Aloes are a family of plants, mostly native to Africa and the Mediterranean, though there are some few native American species. They are succulents with long, fleshy spiked leaves often edged with jagged spines. A large proportion of those used in domestic landscape and as houseplants are low-growing and form rosettes. There are tree and shrub aloes as well, however, and these form rosettes of foliage at the top of thick, fleshy branches. Flowers are produced on long spires from the heart of rosettes.
  
  

Propagation by Seed

• Aloe flowers are slender and tubular, growing in massed groups along the top of thin spires. The flowers of most aloes are not self-fertile, preventing self-fertilization through both sterile pollination and through a pattern of pollen production that finished pollen production prior to the activation of the egg-bearing stigma.
  Pollination then occurs between plants, and requires a mobile pollinator. While bees and insects with long proboscises sometimes serve to fertilize aloes, birds are the most common pollinators. In Africa the sunbird species, a long-beaked, nectar-drinking family of birds, provide primary pollination services. In the Americas the same service is often provided by various hummingbird species. Seeds are fertilized and then distributed by being dropping to the soil and being transported by weather, water runoff and animal droppings.
  
  

Asexual Reproduction

• Aloes are also known for generating offsets, or pups. These plants develop from buds along the root line and at nodes along the stems, and are genetic clones of the parent plant. They will first bud much as a new branch would, and then begin to develop an independent root system.
  
  

Cuttings

• Aloes have powerful regenerative abilities, and a broken aloe stem, leaf or rosette can also form a new plant if it is planted or lands by chance in a good growing environment. Many gardeners choose to grow new plants this way, cutting a rosette or leaf, powdering it with rooting compound and planting it in moist soil.
  
  

Uses

• Most people already know to use aloe vera as a soothing, moisturizing and antiseptic agent on burns and wounds. Aloe is also commonly used in treating digestive problems, as a cosmetic ingredient and as a colonic treatment. Aloe gels are added to some health foods.