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| Aloe sabaea flowering at San Marcos Growers (April 2010) |
Aloe sabaea hybrid (#2)flowering at San Marcos Growers (May 2012) |
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I have always appreciated the look of the Yemen Tree Aloe, Aloe sabaea. I had first seen this interesting plant growing in the Aloe Garden at Lotusland and when we noticed in 2007 that Rancho Soledad Nursery was selling this plant, my friend and cycad collector Jeff Chemnick and I both had to purchased nice sized plants in 15 gallon nursery containers. Two years later, during the summer of 2009, I was eagerly watching the one in Jeff's garden as it appeared to be developing seed. It was the only Aloe sabaea in the garden and there were many other Aloe, so it was presumed that the resulting plants would be garden hybrids but since Aloe sabaea is such an interesting plant, I was interested none the less in germinating the seed to see what we might get.
Unfortunately in early September this plant, with its inflorescence heavy in seed, had its entire crown blown off by a gust of wind or from someone brushing against the inflorescence – the crown was not rotten but had snapped off cleanly. On September 4, 2009 I collected the entire inflorescence and allowed the seed to dry in a cardboard box. This seed was sowed on on October 14, 2009 and by October 28 it had begun to germinate. On March 9, 2010 198 plants were put up into 2 1/4 inch rose pots and On May 20, 2010 these plants were put into 1 gallon nursery containers. At this same time we attempted to hand pollinate the flowers on our Aloe sabaea, using its own pollen, but this produced no viable seed.
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Aloe sabaea Hybrids #1, #2 and #3 at San Marcos Growers (December 2010)' |
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The variability of the resulting seedlings from Jeff's plant suggest that pollen from some other aloe pollinated this plant (big surprise!) but we were able to segregate the crop into 3 distinct groups of similar plants. In their youth none of the groups looks quite like Aloe sabaea but the one we labeled "Hybrid #1", which was the largest group, looked closest to the species, especially if the leaves would begin to cascade downwards. "Hybrid #3" looked totally different with shorter spotted leaves and prominent yellow teeth while the plants we labeld "Hybrid #2" looked intermediary. All appeared to be upwardly growing tree type aloes but hybrid #1 has remained solitary with a more slender trunk and to this day looks more like the species.
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| Aloe sabaea headless (9/2009) |
Aloe sabaea re-sprouting (6/2010) |
Aloe sabaea re-sprouting (7/2010) |
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The original plant in Jeff's garden reprouted from the damaged top but produced multiple stems and then broke off again under its unbalanced weight. Jeff has since rooted out this multiple branched Aloe sabaea and has it planted prominently in front of his house and nearby are its progeny, Hybrids 1, 2 and 3. |
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Aloe sabaea head re-rooted nd growing (11/2011)
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