Aloe verdoorniae Reynolds (1936: 173)

Smith, Gideon F. & Figueiredo, Estrela, 2023, Reinstatement of Aloe verdoorniae (Asphodelaceae subfam. Alooideae), a distinctively purplish blue-leaved species of maculate aloe endemic to the eastern Gauteng and western Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa, Phytotaxa 626 (2), pp. 110-118 : 112-115

Aloe verdoorniae Reynolds (1936: 173) .

Also treated in:— Groenewald (1941: 87, 108, 137), Dyer (1942: t. 879), Reynolds (1950: 237), Judd (1967: 58, plate 15, bottom, second from the left), Jeppe (1969: 96, plate on previous, unnumbered page), Bornman & Hardy (1971: 99), Jacobsen (1977: 101), Jacobsen (1986: 205), Van Wyk & Smith (1996: 228–229), Smith (2003: 52), Van Wyk & Smith (2003: 232–233), Grace (2009: 124), Grace et al. (2011: 162), Van Wyk & Smith (2014: 278–279), Klopper (2015: 359, 616).

Type: — SOUTH AFRICA, Transvaal [Gauteng], Pretoria district, 12 miles [ca. 20 km] northeast of Bronkhorstspruit , Trigaarts Poort , northern slopes, July 1936, I. C. Verdoorn 1624 (designated as “ Type ” by Glen & Hardy 1987: 490, here corrected to lectotype, PRE barcode PRE0086328-2 ! [Image available at http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.pre0086328-2], here designated in a second-step lectotypification; isolectotypes PRE barcode PRE0086328-1 ! [Image available at https://plants. jstor.org/stable/viewer/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.pre0086328-1], K barcode K000256625 ! [Image available at https://plants.jstor. org/stable/viewer/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000256625], K barcode K000256626 ! [Image available at https://plants.jstor.org/stable/ viewer/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000256626] [these two Herb. K gatherings are labelled as being part of the same specimen]) .

Notes on the lectotype:—Where Reynolds (1936: 174) cited material on which he based the name A. verdoorniae , at least five specimens were mentioned: (1) “Verdoorn 1623” [Herbarium where deposited not stated]; (2 and 3) “Verdoorn 1624” [one deposited in Herb. PRE and one in “Bolus Herb. Kirstenbosch”, possibly a reference to presentday Herb. NBG]; (4) “Reynolds 963” [apparently a living plant]; and (5) “1557/36” [possibly a living plant], but none of these was indicated as the type. In addition, Reynolds (1936: unnumbered page opposite p. 173) also included a plate of A. verdoorniae , “Plate XXI”, which consists of four Figures.

From among this ample original material ( Turland et al. 2018: Articles 9.3 and 9.4), Glen & Hardy (1987: 490, 2000: 56) designated “ Verdoorn 1624 ( PRE)” as the “Type”. However, at least three specimens of “ Verdoorn 1624 ”, held in two different herbaria, are known to exist. These are cited as isolectotypes under ‘ Type:—’, above.

Use of “Type” by Glen & Hardy (1987: 490) is here corrected to lectotype ( Turland et al. 2018: Art. 9.10), and in a second-step lectotypification ( Turland et al. 2018: Art. 9.17) is narrowed down to the Herb. PRE specimen with barcode PRE 0086328-2. Note that there is no indication that the two Herb. PRE-held Verdoorn 1624 gatherings, PRE 0086328-1 and PRE 0086328-2, have a single, original label in common, nor were they clearly labelled as being part of that same specimen ( Turland et al. 2018: Art. 8.3).

Description:—Plants small, low-growing, solitary, rosette erect, up to (10–) 15 cm tall. Stem ± absent, short, simple and thickened lower down if present, clothed in persistent, twisted, dried leaves. Leaves densely rosulate, at first erect, then horizontally spreading, 10–15(–20) cm long, 7–9(–10) cm wide at base, purplish blue to distinctly glaucous to dull greenish, deltoid-lanceolate, abaxially pale green, longitudinally indistinctly dark green-lined, lines narrow, not confluent, adaxially immaculate to hardly white-spotted, white spots ± H-shaped-oblong, usually haphazardly arranged, rarely in interrupted, wavy transverse bands, texture smooth; margins shiny-dark brown to concolorous, armed with short, prominent, very pungent, deltoid, shiny-brown, orange-tipped teeth, ± 3–4(–7) mm long, 8–10(–11) mm apart, straight or more rarely variously curved towards leaf base; leaf sap clear. Inflorescence an unbranched raceme or 2- to 4-branched panicle, 2–4 produced per season, 0.6–0.8(–1.0) m tall, erect, branched at or below middle, branches erect at narrow angle from peduncle; peduncle rather stout, with few sterile bracts below racemes, panicle branches subtended by prominent, rapidly-drying fertile bracts of ± 15–20 mm long; peduncular bracts dull light brown to creamy white, irregularly deltoid to lanceolate-triangular, distinctly longitudinally dark purplish brown lined. Racemes cylindrical-acuminate to elongated-deltoid, tapering upwards, 10–30 cm long, ± 4–6(–8) cm wide where flowers are at anthesis, laxly to densely flowered; buds erect to erectly spreading, flowers pendulous at anthesis. Floral bracts ± 9–15 mm long, not prominent, as long as or shorter than pedicels, drying rapidly, light brown to creamy white, narrowly lanceolate, variously twisted, much narrower than fertile bracts. Pedicels 10–15(–35) mm long, light pinkish when young, light green with age. Flowers: perianth: buds uniformly reddish pink to nearly white with greenish longitudinal stripes; open flowers uniformly pinkish to pinkish red or pinkish to pinkish red in basal ⅔ of perianth only, then light whitish yellow in apical ⅓ and greenish striped, ± 28–30(–35) mm long, ± 5–7 mm across ovary, narrowed above ovary to yield small bulbous base, distinctly enlarged towards mouth from below middle, pendent at anthesis; tips of segments very slightly flared, outer segments free for ⅓ of their length; stamens with filiform-flattened filaments, uniformly light yellow, visible at mouth, hardly exserted; ovary 6–8 mm long, 2–3 mm in diam., dark green, distinctly grooved; style shortly exserted, uniformly light yellow; stigma tiny, very slightly capitate, yellowish orange. Fruit not seen. Seed not seen. Chromosome number: 2 n = 14 ( Riley & Majumdar 1979: 48).

Distribution:—The natural geographical distribution range of A. verdoorniae stretches from west of Cullinan and just northeast of Bronkhorstspruit ( Fig. 4 ) in South Africa’s Gauteng province in the east, to Emalahleni and Middelburg in western Mpumalanga, and thence to Dullstroom and eMakhazeni in central Mpumalanga in the east (see Van Wyk & Smith 2014: 278–279 for a map). In accordance with the concerns expressed by Smith et al. (2023), we do not provide a more detailed distribution map for the species, beyond referencing the map included in Van Wyk & Smith (2014). Unlike A. davyana , which occurs in places where the average minimum daily winter temperature is a reasonably mild +5°C in July (mid-winter), A. verdoorniae is a typical so-called Highveld species that grows in places where the average minimum daily winter temperature is +1°C in mid-winter.

Eponymy:— Aloe verdoorniae was named for Dr h.c. Inez Clare Verdoorn (born 15 June 1896, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa –died 02 April 1989, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa) ( Gunn & Codd 1981: 361, Fourie 1989) ( Fig. 5 ). In 1919, at the age of 23, she was appointed to Herb. PRE, the National Herbarium of South Africa, and carried on working at the Herbarium until 1980, i.e., for 61 years. She published several hundred papers, including a pioneering Afrikaans botanical text book ( Verdoorn 1942). Inez was widely respected and the undisputed doyenne of South African botany during the 20 th century ( Germishuizen 1976: 45, Figueiredo & Smith 2021: 282, 287–288, 292, 306).

Figures

FIGURE 4. Aloe verdoorniae is a typical Highveld species that can tolerate temperatures of well below 0°C in exposed positions, for example along rocky outcrops in grassland vegetation. In protected kloofs, such as here, northeast of Bronkhorstspruit, plants grow larger. Photograph: Gideon F. Smith.

FIGURE 5. Dr h.c. Inez Clare Verdoorn (1896–1989), for whom Aloe verdoorniae was named. Photograph © and reproduced with the permission of the South African National Biodiversity Institute.