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Aloe excelsa (Zimbabwe Aloe) - A single stem small tree aloe that has been known to grow taller than 15 feet but is usually seen in cultivation growing to 6 to 10 feet. It has a full rosette of many 3-foot-long dull dark green arching lanceolate leaves often blushed with red tones in winter months. The thick leaves are deeply channeled down the middle with reddish teeth along the margin and held on a trunk that is nearly entirely covered with the withered leaf bases to form a dense skirt nearly to the ground. The winter flowers are typically a deep scarlet red held in 10-inch-long dense cylindrical racemes on a stout branched (up to 6 times) inflorescence. There are also selections with orange, pink and yellow flowers.
Plant in full sun in a well-draining soil and give occasional to infrequent irrigation in the summer growth period with no addition irrigation needed over rainfall in winter and flowering best in drier winter years. It is cold hardy to short duration temperatures down to down to about 20°F and good for gardens in USDA hardiness zones 9b and above. A statuesque plant that adds a burst of color to the landscape in late winter to early spring.
Aloe excelsa has a relatively restricted range though over a considerable distance in south-central Africa where it typically grows on rocky slopes from the Magato mountains in Limpopo, South Africa, north along the southern side of the central watershed of Zimbabwe and north along the hills on the south side of the Zambezi River in Mozambique, on the Mulanje Massif (AKA Mulanje Mountain) in southern Malawi and the Kafue Gorge in Zambia. It was described by the German botanist Alwin Berger (1871–1931), curator of Giardini Botanici Hanbury, the botanical gardens of Sir Thomas Hanbury at La Mortola, in northwestern Italy. Berger described many succulent plants, including sixty species of Aloe, and famously is known for never having seen the plants he described growing in the wild. The specific epithet he chose for this plant is from the Latin word 'excelsus', meaning "tall" or "high", in reference to its growth habit. This species is sometimes confused when not in flower with Aloe ferox and Aloe africana, which both grow naturally to the south.
We have not had many of this magnificent aloe to sell over the years but have a very nice specimen that flowers each year March into April in our garden. This plant is one we received in 2004 with the succulent collection of Stockton plant collector Alice Waidhofer. She had received this plant from the distribution of this species by the Institute for Aloe Studies as Aloe excelsa IAS 2003-16.
The information about Aloe excelsa that is displayed on this web page is based on research conducted in our nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We will also include observations made about this plant as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We also incorporate comments that we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they share cultural information that aids others growing this plant.
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