Magic Aloe Vera Blossoms by Silva Wischeropp

The Palermo Botanical Garden (Italian: Orto Botanico di Palermo) is a garden complex used both by the University of Palermo as a teaching and research facility and by interested visitors. The gardens currently house around 12,000 different species.Created in the second half of the 19th century, the gardens were the model for a whole series of large botanical gardens in northern Europe. Because of Palermo's mild climate, it was possible to cultivate a large number of plants from all over the world that had previously been rare or unknown in Europe. Through the mediation of Adolf Engler, there was also a lively exchange with the Botanical Garden in Berlin.
In the garden of succulents one can find some aloes and various other plants of dry regions, including Cereus, Crassula, Spurge and Opuntia.
The Aloe species are perennial, leafy succulent plants. They grow stemless, shrubby or tree-like. The stem can be simple or branched. Their stem-embracing stem leaves are rosette-like, bipinnate or scattered around the shoot axis.
The inflorescence, usually more or less erect, appears laterally, is simple or branched and consists of cylindrical or headed, racemose inflorescences, with sometimes unifoliolate flowers. The zygomorphic flowers are stalked and have bracts. They are only rarely stalkless.
The flower stalk is often elongated when the fruit ripens. The flower base is rounded, truncated or narrowed.
The usually red or yellow, rarely white, glabrous, rarely downy flowers are cylindrical at the base, then usually triangular. They are slightly compressed at the sides and usually curved.