XVI International Botanical Congess

In his treatment of the genus Aloe, Reynolds (1950) used a modification of the classification system of Berger (Engler 1908) but did not apply the system universally in later treatments of the aloes of tropical East Africa and Madagascar (Reynolds 1966). Several post-Reynolds species have been described with authors 'forcing' their new taxa into an unwieldy system. Furthermore the genus Aloe has fallen prey to immense taxonomic splitting resulting in many ill defined taxa and infrageneric groups. Although a daunting task, far from complete, we present a new classification system based on profound new insights into relationships in the genus gained through chemotaxonomic studies (see poster abstract elsewhere). This is the first attempt at an updated and universal classification system for the genus as a whole.