page_title: Gasteria excelsa
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Gasteria excelsa / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Leaf detail of Gasteria excelsa varieties
context_page_description: Gasteria excelsa is a succulent plant, native to the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.
context_section_description: It is one of the largest of the Gasteria species, second only to Gasteria acinacifolia in height. It has smoother, thicker, wider, darker leaves than its relative, and forms solitary, robust rosettes of stiff, sharp, triangular leaves.
  It can be distinguished from its closest relatives by the unusually sharp, heavily-serrated, white margins on their leaves. The leaves are a distinctive mottled, dark green colour, with a smooth surface (though juvenile plants' leaves are rough). 
  The leaves of fully grown plants are often channeled on the upper side, with sharp edges, and (like its relatives) a keel on their lower side.
  The erectly-branched inflorescence is often over a meter in height, with pink-green flowers and appears between November and February. The specific epithet, excelsa, means "lofty" or "high" in Latin. It refers both to the great height of the plant's inflorescence, as well as to the high cliff-face habitat of this species.
  They are popular as ornamental plants for containers, but have a very large root system.
caption: Detail of leaf, showing the distinctive sharp, white, heavily-serrated margins.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3264", "Image ImageLength": "2448", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "GT-I9100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer 6.1.7600.16385", "Image DateTime": "2015:08:09 14:07:03", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2290", "Image XPComment": "[85, 0, 115, 0, 101, 0, 114, 0, 32, 0, 99, 0, 111, 0, 109, 0, 109, 0, 101, 0, 110, 0, 116, 0, 115, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "53/20", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:08:08 14:09:58", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:08:08 14:09:58", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "141/25", "EXIF ApertureValue": "281/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "407/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "281/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "397/100", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "0", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3264", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "SCEF02", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4180"}