40 Fun Facts About Aloe Vera

In Indonesian and Malay, aloe vera is called lidah buaya, meaning the tongue of which animal?

Crocodile is buaya and tongue is lidah, so the plant is literally the crocodile's tongue. Both languages use the same two-word name.

Aloe vera was among the houseplants tested in a 1989 clean-air study led by which agency?

NASA ran the study to find ways of cleaning the air in sealed places such as space stations. Plants were tested against pollutants including benzene and formaldehyde.

Ancient Egyptians, who prized aloe as a remedy, are said to have called it the plant of what?

Immortality was the quality Egyptians attached to aloe. The plant has been used as medicine for millennia in cultures from Greece and India to Japan and China.

Which ancient queen is said to have made aloe vera part of her regular beauty routine?

Cleopatra is said to have used aloe as part of her regular beauty regime, and the same tradition credits Nefertiti with the habit.

Aloe vera is often confused with which spiky lookalike, whose blue variety is used to make tequila?

Agave is so easily taken for aloe that one species is nicknamed American aloe, yet the two are not closely related. Agaves sit in the asparagus family instead.

What do gardeners call the baby plants that sprout around the base of a mature aloe vera?

Pups crowd around the mother plant until the pot is full. They can be left in place or divided off and repotted to start new plants.

Aloe vera now grows around the world, but botanists trace its wild origin to which region?

Arabian Peninsula mountains are its home: the species is considered native to the Hajar range of Oman and the UAE. People carried it nearly everywhere else.

The vera in aloe vera comes from the Latin word verus, which has what meaning?

True is the sense of the Latin. The name Aloe vera was published in 1768, fifteen years after the plant was first described under a longer name.

Lotions containing aloe vera have study-backed support for soothing which painful skin complaint?

Sunburn is the classic use for aloe lotion. Several studies support the soothing effect, though others found none, and aloe cannot protect skin from burning again.

The thick, fleshy leaves of aloe vera are an adaptation that lets the plant survive what?

Drought holds few terrors for a plant that stores moisture in its leaves. The clear gel inside them is about 99% water.

Which traditional pot material is recommended for aloe vera because it lets damp soil dry faster?

Terracotta is porous, so moisture escapes through the walls of the pot as well as the top. Potted aloes should dry out completely between drinks.

Aloe vera sends up a tall spike of drooping tubular flowers in which colour?

Yellow flowers hang from a spike that can stand up to 90 cm tall. Each bloom is a narrow tube only two or three centimetres long.

Which common care mistake causes the roots of a potted aloe vera to rot?

Overwatering is the classic way to lose an aloe. The soil should dry out completely between drinks, with even less given in the cold months.

What runs along the margins of each fleshy aloe vera leaf?

Small white teeth give each leaf a serrated edge. The leaves themselves are green to grey-green, and some varieties carry pale flecks.

Which soil texture does a potted aloe vera need, so that moisture runs away from its roots quickly?

Sandy, free-draining soil suits a plant built for dry places. A packaged cactus mix does the same job, and bright light completes the recipe.

Much of the aloe vera farmed on a large scale, from Mexico to Kenya, is sold to which industry?

Cosmetics makers buy much of the world's farmed aloe. Large-scale growers operate in a dozen countries, among them China, India, Spain, Tanzania and the United States.

In 2002 the FDA pulled aloe latex from which over-the-counter products, citing missing safety data?

Laxatives were the products affected. The latex comes from the leaf's outer layer, separate from the clear inner gel that goes into skin products.

Which ancient conqueror is said to have used aloe vera to treat his soldiers' wounds?

Alexander the Great is among the famous names tied to aloe as a wound dressing. Greek scientists went further and regarded the plant as a universal panacea.

Before reclassification, botanists long grouped aloe vera's genus in one family with which plants?

Lilies and aloes shared the family Liliaceae for generations, until the aloes were moved to Asphodelaceae. Despite the spiky look, they have no close tie to cacti.

The name aloe is often linked to the Arabic alloeh, said to mean a shining substance with which taste?

Bitter fits the sharp-tasting sap that seeps from just under the skin of an aloe leaf. Dictionaries trace the word only as far as Greek, with an uncertain Eastern source beyond that.

Which botanist first described aloe vera, in his 1753 book Species Plantarum?

Carl Linnaeus treated it as a mere variety of another aloe, Aloe perfoliata. It was only raised to a species of its own in 1768.

Which Caribbean island shows an aloe plant on its coat of arms, honouring its first major export?

Aruba once had two-thirds of its land under aloe fields and became the world's largest exporter of the plant.

Philip Miller's 1768 scientific name for aloe vera, still used on labels, honours which island?

Barbados is honoured in Aloe barbadensis, a name that lost priority by about ten days to Aloe vera yet lives on in ingredient lists.

In John's Gospel, Nicodemus brings aloes mixed with which fragrant resin to the burial of Jesus?

Myrrh and aloes, about a hundred Roman pounds of the mixture, were what Nicodemus carried to the tomb. Scholars debate whether those aloes were the succulent's sap or an unrelated fragrant wood.

Which giant aloe relative takes its name from the use San hunters made of its hollowed branches?

Quiver tree branches are tubular, so San hunters hollowed them out to carry arrows. The species was classed as an aloe until botanists moved it to Aloidendron.

The spiral aloe, with leaves in a five-pointed spiral, grows wild only in which mountain kingdom?

Lesotho is the only home of the spiral aloe. Removing the plants or their seed from the wild is a criminal offence, and commercial international trade is banned.

Which nectar-feeding birds, Africa's counterpart to hummingbirds, are key pollinators of wild aloes?

Sunbirds have long down-curved bills made for tubular flowers. Unlike hummingbirds they usually perch to feed, so the plants they visit offer sturdy landing spots.

In the mid-1930s, aloe vera won medical attention for treating skin inflammation caused by what?

Radiation dermatitis, chronic and severe, was treated successfully with aloe, a turning point that brought the old folk remedy to the notice of modern medicine.

After centuries of planting worldwide, aloe vera is classed as what kind of species in many regions?

Invasive is the label it carries in many regions. Escaped plants now grow wild far from home, from the Canary Islands and Cape Verde to parts of Spain and Portugal.

Aloe vera roots team up with which soil organisms to gain better access to mineral nutrients?

Fungi thread into the root cells in a partnership called arbuscular mycorrhiza, a bond that other aloe species form too.

Which British gardening charity has given aloe vera its Award of Garden Merit?

Royal Horticultural Society recognition marks it as a reliable garden plant. As an ornamental it is grown for its form and flowers, and it suits rockeries and low-rainfall gardens.

Aloe vera gel is used commercially in beverages, some desserts and which dairy product?

Yogurt is one of several foods made with the gel. The leaf's latex is another matter: at high or prolonged doses it can be toxic.

Which fiery-named garden perennial, also called Kniphofia, shares a plant subfamily with the aloes?

Red hot poker belongs with the aloes in the subfamily Asphodeloideae, though it is a leafy garden perennial rather than a fleshy desert plant.

Which fragrant resinous wood, prized by perfumers as oud, is the aloes named in the Hebrew Bible?

Agarwood, also known as aloeswood, has nothing to do with the houseplant. It is a dark resinous wood used in incense, perfume and small carvings.

Aloe perryi, named by DNA studies as a close relative of aloe vera, grows wild only on which island?

Socotra is the only home of Aloe perryi, which is also known as Socotrine aloe and valued for its medicinal juice.

Gasteria, a close relative of the aloes, is named for the likeness of its flowers to which organ?

Stomach is gaster in Greek, a nod to the swollen base of each flower. Gasterias cross so readily with aloes that the hybrids have a name of their own, Gasteraloe.

Which animal names a small white-banded haworthia, an aloe relative popular as a house plant?

Zebra haworthia earns the name from the bands of white bumps across its tapered leaves. It was once classed as an aloe itself, under the name Aloe attenuata.

The ASPCA lists aloe vera as toxic to dogs, cats and which larger animal?

Horses join cats and dogs on the ASPCA's warning for aloe. Signs of poisoning include lethargy and diarrhoea, and the smaller pets may also vomit.

Which explorer of the Americas is said to have used aloe vera to treat soldiers' wounds?

Columbus is one of the famous names tradition links to aloe as a wound remedy. By the early 1800s the plant was in regular medicinal use in the United States.

Aloe vera resists most insect pests, but which of these insects can still sap its health?

Mealybugs, along with spider mites, scale insects and aphids, are the main pests able to weaken an otherwise tough plant.