We were slowly increasing stock of this rarity by cuttings over a decade but its few-leaved rosettes and fibrous stems offer limited opportunities to yield viable cuttings compared to many aloes. We finally cut to the quick and initiated it into tissue culture to create enough plants for this offering. Its loose rosettes are at first distichous and bear a few stiff, glaucous leaves at the tips of sprawling or pendent stems, suggesting a possible relationship with the cliff-dwelling A. cremnophila. It differs in its branched inflorescence which bears a few divergent, loose racemes of dusky pink flowers, though red and yellow-flowered forms are also said to occur. We offer plants from tissue culture of HBG 100318, a plant from Seymour Linden in 2005, collected at the type, and only known, locality by Ernst Specks (0062) W of Obbia, in the Mudug Region of north-central Somalia. $10.
Published in the Cactus and Succulent Journal, Vol. 92 (2), Summer 2020