Species
+

Aloe marlothii A.Berger

Flat-flowered Aloe, Mountain Aloe, Seemakamotho, Sekgopha

Climate known 49 photographs Cactus or succulent
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Aloe marlothii is a large, single-stemmed Southern African aloe of rocky places and open flat country, occasionally growing up to 6 metres (20 ft) tall.

Text from Wikipedia, “Aloe marlothii”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Aloe

Aloe is a genus containing 594 species of flowering succulent plants. The most widely known species is Aloe vera, or "true aloe", which is cultivated as a source for topical uses and dietary supplements. Other species, such as Aloe ferox, are also cultivated or harvested from the wild for similar applications.

Text from Wikipedia, “Aloe”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Asphodelaceae
Described by
A.Berger
Native to
Mozambique, Botswana, KwaZulu-Natal +2
Wild records
1662 in range· 437 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Jan, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
695mm/yr
7 wet months · peak Jan 122 mm (CHELSA)
Light
24–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Aloe, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (November to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 695 mm a year, wettest January at 122 mm, driest July at 8 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 1.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Aloe, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (November to March at the habitat, southern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (525 mm of 695 mm) falls in November to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 22.1 °C against a yearly mean of 18.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: May to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 695 mm a year, wettest January at 122 mm, driest July at 8 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

695 mm a year at the habitat, 525 mm of it November to March. Wettest month January at 122 mm, driest July at 8 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 530 mm to 961 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 1.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 1.7 °C, the absolute minimum -3.5 °C, about 1 frost night a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 6.2 °C in July (across the envelope cells 3.3 °C to 11.6 °C), warmest day 27.8 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 1.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 53 to 60% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 20 °C in Jun to 28 °C in Jan; mean night from 6 °C in Jul to 18 °C in Jan. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 695 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 762 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -3.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost35.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)-3.5° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 24–40RH 53–60 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 762 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C28 / 25–3128 / 25–3026 / 24–3024 / 22–2822 / 20–2620 / 17–2420 / 17–2422 / 20–2525 / 23–2826 / 23–2927 / 24–2927 / 25–30
Night °C18 / 15–2117 / 15–2116 / 13–2013 / 11–1810 / 7–157 / 4–126 / 3–128 / 6–1311 / 9–1514 / 11–1715 / 13–1917 / 14–20
Rain mm122 / 94–162104 / 82–15085 / 63–11139 / 28–5515 / 11–2710 / 6–208 / 2–1611 / 5–2521 / 11–4166 / 40–100101 / 77–137113 / 86–153
DLI39 / 36–4338 / 35–4134 / 31–3630 / 27–3227 / 24–2924 / 22–2625 / 23–2729 / 26–3234 / 30–3935 / 31–4237 / 33–4240 / 36–44
RH %59 / 55–6460 / 55–6459 / 55–6458 / 54–6155 / 50–5853 / 50–5653 / 48–5553 / 47–5654 / 46–5856 / 50–6158 / 53–6359 / 55–64

Each figure is the median across the 762 grid cells holding the 1625 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2277:4190 (-23.875, 29.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -3.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 762 distinct grid cells holding the 1625 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2277:4190 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -24.00_29.375, lapse-corrected +8 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1327 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMozambique, Botswana, KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland, Northern Provinces· introduced: Free State
Kew's description“succulent shrub or tree” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-24.625, 30.625 · in the densest population, 1437 records (86% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1662 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 437 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 208 km away. 13 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 37 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 1662 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Aloe marlothiiAloe marlothiiAloe marlothiiAloe marlothiiAloe marlothiiAloe marlothiiAloe marlothiiAloe marlothii

Photographs: (c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Sunčana Bradley, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) dhfischer, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Shaun Swanepoel, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Aloe marlothii, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Aloe Genus Plants: From Farm to Food Applications and Phytopharmacotherapy
Bahare Salehi, Sevil Albayrak, Hubert Antolak, Dorota Kręgiel (2018) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Current application of phytocompound-based nanocosmeceuticals for beauty and skin therapy
Palanivel Ganesan, Dong‐Kug Choi (2016) · International Journal of Nanomedicine
Use of ethnoveterinary medicinal plants in cattle by Setswana-speaking people in the Madikwe area of the North West Province of South Africa
Deon van der Merwe, G.E. Swan, C.J. Botha (2001) · Journal of the South African Veterinary Association
Ethnobotanical survey in Canhane village, district of Massingir, Mozambique: medicinal plants and traditional knowledge
Ana I. Ribeiro‐Barros, María M. Romeiras, João Tavares, Maria T Faria (2010) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants used by Bapedi healers to treat diabetes mellitus in the Limpopo Province, South Africa
Sebua Silas Semenya, M.J. Potgieter, Lourens Johannes Christoffel Erasmus (2012) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
The ethnobotany of the Vhavenda
Dowelani Edward Ndivhudzannyi Mabogo (2012) · UpSpace Institutional Repository (University of Pretoria)
Aloe vera-Based Hydrogels for Wound Healing: Properties and Therapeutic Effects
Mariana Chelu, Adina Magdalena Musuc, Mónica Popa, Jose Calderon Moreno (2023) · Gels
Plants used for treating respiratory infections in rural Maputaland, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
T. York, H. De Wet, Sandy van Vuuren (2011) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Evolutionary history and leaf succulence as explanations for medicinal use in aloes and the global popularity of Aloe vera
Olwen M. Grace, Sven Buerki, Matthew R. E. Symonds, Félix Forest (2015) · BMC Evolutionary Biology

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Aloe 8 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 19 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.