Commonly used in many skincare products, the aloe plant comes in dif ferent variants. One such variant, aloe ferox, grows wildly, stretching over kilometres of land in the KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
If you take a drive through the Eastern Cape midwinter, you will spot a tree-like singlestemmed plant with large boat-shaped juicy green succulent leaves dotting open fields along both sides of the freeway. On its head sits a cluster of bright tomato-red f lowers arranged on an upward stem. They drip nectar loved by bees and sunbirds, arriving right on time as it is most needed in the cooler months. This is aloe ferox, one of five species of aloe that naturally occur in the Eastern Cape.