in botany, a genus of the hexandria monogynia clas. The characters are: The corolla is erect, open at the top, and the nectarium at the bottom of it; the filaments of the stamina are inserted in the receptacle, the leaves are thick, succulent, and for the most part beset with bristles; the fruit is oblong and cylindrical, and divided into three cells, which contain flat semicircular seeds. There are eight species of the aloe, viz., the perfoliata, variegata, disticha, spiralis, villosa, pumila, uvaria, and retusa, most of them natives of Africa. The retusa, or pearl aloe, is a very beautiful plant. It is smaller than most of the aloe kind. The leaves are short, very thick, sharp pointed, and turning down with a large thick end, appear there triangular. The colour of the leaves is a fine green, striped in an elegant manner with white, and frequently tipped with red at the point. The flower-stalk, which rises in the midst of the leaves, is round, smooth, of a purple colour, and generally about eight inches high. When the plant has been properly cultivated, the flowers are striped with green and white; and sometimes they are entirely white. This aloe is singular in not having the bitter resinous juice with which the leaves of most others abound; when a leaf of this species is cut, what runs from it is watery, colourless, and perfectly insipid. Linnaeus says that this plant thrives best in a clay soil, and that it grows wild in the clay-grounds of Africa. See plate XI. fig. 1.

The inspissated juice of the aloe is a stimulating cathartic bitter, and is used in various forms, for cleansing the prime viae, attenuating and resolving viscid juices, for promoting the uterine and hemorrhoidal fluxes, killing worms, &c.

ALOE-WOOD. See XYLO-ALOES.