Q 01/05

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

A) Buffalo

B) Elephant

C) Crocodile

D) Rhinoceros

Answer · why

C) Crocodile

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

Q 02/05

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

A) NASA

B) NOAA

C) EPA

D) CDC

Answer · why

A) NASA

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 a...

Q 03/05

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

A) Friendship

B) Prosperity

C) Good fortune

D) Immortality

Answer · why

D) Immortality

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 a...

Q 04/05

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

A) Boudica

B) Cleopatra

C) Zenobia

D) Hatshepsut

Answer · why

B) Cleopatra

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

Q 05/05

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

A) Agave

B) Yucca

C) Bromeliad

D) Saguaro

Answer · why

A) Agave

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...