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Aloe camperi 'Cornuta' (Horned Nubian Aloe) - Like the species this is a colony forming aloe suckers or branches near the base but otherwise it is very different from the species. While typical Aloe camperi rarely exceeds 2 feet in height, the 'Cornuta' form is much stouter and has reached to 4 feet or more in the Huntington Botanic Gardens Desert Garden. This cultivar also is distinctive from the species with much thicker leaves that are more or less straight and splashed with white spots while the species has plain green leaves that are slender and slightly arching. Another difference is the compact and subcapitate inflorescence with large flowers borne on shorter peduncles that bloom late winter into spring while the species blooms mid to late spring in Southern California.
Plant in full sun or shade though it flowers best in full sun and irrigate little to occasionally. Should prove as hardy as the species and able to handle temperatures to the low 20's F - It has survived several hard frosts over the years at the Huntington Botanic Gardens. A great landscape plant that durable and very showy in full bloom.
Aloe camperi 'Cornuta' has been cultivated in the Desert Garden of the Huntington Botanic Garden since the 1930s. It was originally received by the garden as Aloe abbysinica Lam. (HBG#92), a species rejected by Reynolds as imperfectly known. According to Gilbert Westacott Reynolds, author of The Aloes of South Africa and The Aloes of Tropical Africa and Madagascar, the German botanis Joseph zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck used an illustration of A. camperi to represent Aloe abyssinica in 1817, misleading whoever first identified this plant. Alwin Berger described Aloe eru var. cornuta in Das Pflanzenreich (1908) and Reynolds later considered Aloe eru to be a synonym of A. camperi, but does not mention the variety cornuta, though this plant seems to match Berger's description and so the Huntington Botanic Garden thought it fitting to introduce this plant through the International Succulent Introduction program as Aloe camperi 'Cornuta' (ISI 2003-15), however many consider this name incorrect as this plant is so entirely different from Aloe camperi. Whatever the real identification of this plant is, it is a fantastic aloe that we have grown since 2012.
This description of Aloe camperi 'Cornuta' is based on our research and our observations of this plant growing in the nursery, in our own garden and in other gardens. We would appreciate getting feedback of any kind from those who have any additional information about this plant, particularly if they disagree with what we have written.
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Aloe camperi 'Cornuta' - Horned Nubian Aloe
