Aloe descoingsii is, I believe, the smallest living aloe and a real challenge to photograph successfully. There is something about its squat, stacked form and incredibly cryptic texture and colouration that seems to defeat attempts to picture it in any accurate or constructive way.
Our plant, pictured here, is just 4cm across the largest rosette and is beginning to pup. It flowered over summer, putting out a spectacular fly-rod truss almost 25cm long, weighted down at the end with beautiful, lantern-like blooms in waxy apricot and saffron.
Our plant, pictured here, is just 4cm across the largest rosette and is beginning to pup. It flowered over summer, putting out a spectacular fly-rod truss almost 25cm long, weighted down at the end with beautiful, lantern-like blooms in waxy apricot and saffron.
Aloe Descoingsii hails from Madagascar, that land of all things vegetatively fabulous, gowing, according to 'Aloes the Definitive Guide' in humus-filled cavities on the face of limestone cliffs at an altitude of 350m. There is a subspecies, Augustina, from up the road a bit in the same province, Toliara.
I've had mine for a little over a year and it's presented no cultvational problems (so far), perhaps because it lives inside here. I suspect it's a little more tropically-inclined than many of my other Madagascan aloes, which evolved at higher altitudes, so I cosset it a wee bit. Half day shade, water maybe three times a month over summer and not at all over winter, very open soil mix with plenty of pumice. I've begun a blood and bone meal feeding regime, a liberal dressing once a year in spring, which seems to be yielding great results especially in regards to flowering. For a small pot like this I would scatter about half a teaspoon of dry meal, being careful not to deposit it on the plant or around it's basal area, watering it in well.
© céili o'keefe.
I've had mine for a little over a year and it's presented no cultvational problems (so far), perhaps because it lives inside here. I suspect it's a little more tropically-inclined than many of my other Madagascan aloes, which evolved at higher altitudes, so I cosset it a wee bit. Half day shade, water maybe three times a month over summer and not at all over winter, very open soil mix with plenty of pumice. I've begun a blood and bone meal feeding regime, a liberal dressing once a year in spring, which seems to be yielding great results especially in regards to flowering. For a small pot like this I would scatter about half a teaspoon of dry meal, being careful not to deposit it on the plant or around it's basal area, watering it in well.
© céili o'keefe.
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