Story behind the art of Gillian Rice

29th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators

Bitter Aloe

Aloe ferox

I love to paint the plants in my garden. I’m always excited when my plant friends bloom. This is especially the case when the blooms are dramatic, like those of Aloe ferox, commonly known as bitter aloe or Cape aloe. 

Where I live in the Sonoran low desert (Phoenix, Arizona), drought tolerant aloes and agaves are popular landscape plants. I am partial to aloes because they bloom each year, whereas one must wait maybe 25 years for an agave to shoot up its spectacular blooming spike. Standing guard by my front door, my Aloe ferox bloomed each winter for several years before it grew very large. I hadn’t realized when I planted it that it could grow to ten feet, and eventually it toppled over. I am a keen but not proficient gardener. I think I had planted it in the wrong place. I was sad to remove it but glad I had painted it. This artwork serves as a special memory for me. I recall also the sweet fledgling mockingbird that hid among the aloe’s big leaves for a few days one spring waiting to be fed by its parents.

Indigenous to the Cape coastal region of South Africa and growing mostly in rocky areas, Aloe ferox has been used medicinally for millennia. Cave paintings by the San Indigenous peoples even depict this species. The botanical name “ferox” means ferocious because of the thorny spines on the sides of the leaves. I am familiar with the popularity of Aloe vera as a medicinal or cosmetic ingredient but I had no idea about the value of Aloe ferox. Chen and colleagues (2012) detail its traditional and modern day uses. They refer to documents that reveal “critical know-how about the harvesting of aloe-gum was transferred from an unidentified slave (presumably a Khoi-San person) to Joahnnes Petrus de Wit, a Gouritz River farmer who became the first exporter of Cape aloes in 1761.” 

Today, South Africa is the world’s largest exporter of wild-harvested aloe bitters, selling to pharmaceutical companies in Europe, Japan, and the United States. Many people believe the bitter latex to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anticancer properties. The commercial development of the aloe tapping industry provides rural communities with economic opportunities. Most Aloe ferox gel is wild-harvested sustainably by trained tappers using traditional methods that do not kill the plants. Harvesters remove the lower leaves and arrange them around a prepared pit. They collect bitter sap that drains into the pit. Some small plantations exist and industrial processing began in South Africa in the 1990s. The South African Botanical Registry explains that two products are harvested: one is the bitter yellow sap (aloe bitters), which is primarily used for laxative and digestive preparations and the other is clear inner leaf gel used in cosmetics and topical healing products.     

Aloe plants attract me because of their shape and colors. The huge waxy, fleshy leaves twist and turn while the overall shape of the plant is like a rosette. On the occasional rainy day, water collects in the small basins created by upturned leaves. Perhaps the overall bowl-shape of the plant and these leaf basins somehow direct rain to the plant’s roots? 

Newer leaves are more blue-green and as they age and form the lower part of the plant, they become yellower and browner. The tips of the leaves are reddish as are the spines on the leaf margins. Some leaves have smaller spines on both the upper and lower surfaces. More spines on younger plants can deter grazing animals. I like the way the old leaves curl and dry out providing havens underneath the plant for lizards and other small creatures. And for me, perhaps the most wonderful characteristic, common to aloes and agaves, is the way the leaves have an imprint in the middle made by the spiny edges of the other leaves they embraced when first developing in the rosette’s center.

Flowers grow on a regal candelabra inflorescence, which can have up to eight racemes. Mine had only two. The many tubular flowers on each raceme that gradually open from the bottom are a delightful contrast to the blue-green leaves. Hummingbirds often feed on aloe flowers.

The challenge I faced depicting this subject was its size: much larger than my paper.  But because it was in my garden, I could draw it from life and check the colors. It was still hard to get very close to it because I had planted it next to a golden barrel cactus thick with spines and an agave that had leaves with dangerous needle-points. I managed to cut off an aloe leaf and take it to my art desk for reference and I could also harvest a few flowers without causing damage.

I worked slowly in drybrush, so this painting took almost six weeks to complete. When I begin a new work, I always procrastinate and do several drawings, wondering what composition I might like. Eventually I become comfortable with my subject and how I want to depict it and then build up to working a few hours a day. 

I hope someone viewing this work will appreciate the variations in leaf color and the joyful hues of the flowers. I am always astounded at how plants like aloes can survive in the harshest conditions of heat and drought – but the thickness of their leaves and rosette shape mean they are designed to do so.

References
Chen, W., Van Wyk, B., Vermaak, I., and Viljoen, A.M. Cape aloes - A review of the phytochemistry, pharmacology and commercialisation of Aloe ferox. Phytochemistry Letters. 5 (2012), 1-12.

The South African Botanical Registry, https://africanginger.health/species/aloe-ferox
Accessed on June 27, 2026.

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