'' (right), the other endemic Mauritian Aloe which has yellow-green, thicker, straighter leaves This highly variable species grows an erect stem 7–10 cm in diameter, and can reach a height of 3 meters (unlike its closest relative
Aloe tormentorii which is usually acaulescent or decumbent). The stem is topped by a dense rosette of up to 20 leaves. Its long, slender, ensiform to lanceolate leaves are more recurved and narrower than those of
Aloe tormentorii, reaching a length of up to 1 meter, but a maximum of only 12 cm width at the base. The leaves are usually a dark green or slightly reddish, with red margins, but can vary in colour greatly. Its species name
"purpurea" means "purple". The margins are lined with soft teeth, densely arranged near the leaf base, but further apart towards the leaf tip. Its flowers grow on cylindrical racemes. On younger (acaulescent) plants, the inflorescence has only a few branches. On larger adult plants, there can be up to ten of these racemes, all branching from a 20–30 cm peduncle. It flowers in September, and the green-yellow buds of the flowers become orange or pink when open. It is especially closely related to
Aloe macra, the highly variable species of Reunion island, and the two species look very similar. However
Aloe purpurea can usually be distinguished by its longer, more dull-coloured, flowers with longer pedicels. It also more commonly grows a tall stem (a character only some
Aloe macra plants have).
The Coode specimen (1973) While the plants usually have slender, recurved, deeply concave leaves, the 1978
Flore des Mascareignes recorded that M.J.E. Coode collected a single extremely unusual plant, five years previously in 1973, near Yemen in western Mauritius. This plant had short, wide, compact, turgid leaves. It also bore unusually massive, robust, and multi-branched inflorescences, in spite of being quite small and acaulescent. The plant seemed to have a different internal structure too, and its leaves produced large amounts of an unusual yellow gel when cut open. This specimen did not fit into the species definition of
Aloe purpurea. It could have been a chance aberration. However, virtually all of the viable natural habitat had been destroyed long beforehand, so it is impossible to verify if there were others like it, or if it was even a surviving remnant of a different
Aloe entity. ==Distribution==