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Aloe lukeana (Luke's Aloe) - A beautiful aloe with a 3-4-foot-wide rosette holding many (20-35) 2 foot long by 4 to 5 inch wide recurving and channeled dark green leaves with large evenly spaced light colored teeth sitting atop a stout 3-5 foot tall stem. In its youth this plant can start out decumbent with only the one rosette but with age it can branch to have a cluster of rosettes at the top of the stem. In late summer appear the red to orange flowers in erect conical racemes on a multi branched 2-foot-tall inflorescence that rises just above the foliage. The flower buds are held horizontally and become pendant as the flowers open.
It is hard to know much about culture on this plant as it is fairly new in cultivation, but based on our experience with it feel it best to plant it in full to part sun in a relatively well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally to infrequently. Its native habitat is at a moderately high elevation but also near the equator, so its ultimate hardiness will need to be tested in colder locations than our own, but so far it has wintered outdoors in Santa Barbara with nighttime temperatures just below freezing for short durations without any problem. This is a beautiful large aloe that would make a real statement in the garden.
Aloe lukeana comes from Mount Morungole near the borders of South Sudan and Kenya in the Karamoja region of Uganda. It is a species that was described by Tom Cole in June-July 2015 issue of the Cactus and Succulent Journal of America (Vol. 87 No. 4:152-159). Mr. Cole operates Cold Spring Aloes, a specialty aloe nursery in Santa Barbara, is co-author with Tom Forrest of The Aloes of Uganda (Oakleigh Press, 2017) and is an agricultural aid worker who often spends any spare time he has exploring and botanizing the areas in Africa where he is often working. He first noted this plant growing at 6,900 to 8,800 feet on rocky grassland slopes while exploring Mount Morungole in 2013 and, after determining it a new species, named the plant to honor his brother Luke, who tragically died in an automobile accident while in Uganda in 2009. Brian Kemble wrote a very nice article about this plant, titled Aloe lukeana, for the October 2024 newsletter of the San Francisco Cactus and Succulent society that he graciously shared with us.
Our plants are grown from seed that was provided to us by Tom Cole and is likely to provide a range of flower colors from light orange to a dark orange red.
The information about Aloe lukeana displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant. |
