Whilst travelling down the Raydah Escarpment
from the top at 3000 metres to the farm at 1200 metres you come to a zone of
Tree Aloe near the bottom. Here a good number of large plants grow by the side
of the road and make a spectacular sight. Tree Aloes with a few exceptions are
native to Africa or the islands off Africa (such as Madagascar). However, at
least one tree aloe is a native of Yemen & southwest Saudi Arabia. Yemen
Tree Aloe Aloe sabaea is a curious tree aloe, growing up to about three
to four metres tall and having a relatively sparse head of leaves (sometimes
only 6-8), most that drape down and bend gracefully. The leaves are thick, wide
and gently tapering, fleshy pale green to yellow green and lightly armed with
pale teeth along the margins. Stems are markedly thin, making these trees seem
inordinately top heavy. There are only a few dead leaves in the skirt below the
crown and most of the stem is usually bare. Flowers are multi-branched and
racemes are extremely open and consist of multicolored flowers of either red or
orange and yellow. This unusual plant comes from remote areas of Yemen and
southwestern Saudi Arabia where it grows at an intermediate elevation in stony
barren soils. The specific epithet 'sabaea' comes from the Roman name for
Arabia Felix, the area we now call Yemen. This plant was described and named,
by Georg Agustus Schweinfurth in 1894. He was a German botanist and ethnologist
who travelled throughout East Central Africa and the Saudi Arabian peninsula.
