Keyed Out #132 — Aloe vera

Question 1

Its blooms hang in a dense unbranched spire on a bare stalk, each one built of six segments joined for about half their length into a drooping tube, with six {stamens} inside and a three-chambered {ovary} standing free above the base of the {perianth}, not many narrow segments spread flat and open like a star.

Accepted Answer

asphodel family

Question 2

Cut a leaf across the base and a bitter yellow juice weeps from a ring of fine tubules lying just inside the rind, drying to a brown resin that violently purges the gut, rather than a bland watery {sap} carrying no such chemistry.

Accepted Answer

Asphodelaceae

Question 3

Its leaves are thick, water-swollen blades in a {rosette}, and every margin carries a run of firm pale triangular teeth set roughly half an inch (1 to 1.5 cm) apart, not slender grassy straps or soft smooth cylinders with unarmed edges.

Accepted Answer

Aloe

Question 4

Viewed from directly above, its many leaves are set in a spiral all round a short central axis and build an open bowl, rather than sitting in two opposite ranks that flatten the whole plant into a fan.

Accepted Answer

Aloe

Question 5

It stays essentially trunkless, a clump 12 to 24 inches (30 to 60 cm) high whose rosettes sit almost on the soil and multiply into a ring of rooted {offsets}, rather than lifting its rosettes on woody stems 6 to 10 feet (2 to 3 m) tall.

Accepted Answer

Aloe vera

Question 6

Every bloom in the spire is the same plain soft yellow from bud to fall, with no scarlet, coral or orange anywhere on it.

Accepted Answer

Aloe vera