I don't have any seeds but I have a bunch of aloe plants that need to be split that I would would be willing to trade.

Hi, pirate_girl! I'm certain that you know what you are talking about -- you sound like you do, and you did mention that you hang out on the C&S forum, so I have no reasons to doubt your knowledge!. What I was suggesting is to pick a rooting method that will most certainly work on aloes, another method that will absolutely certainly fail on them, and then, say, one more that is in between, that may give mixed results. Cory said that the class project requires an experiment -- so this could be one thing to try. If (or, rather, when :) ) a pup fails in water, that's an experimental result too -- it simply gives extra proof that water is not a right medium here. And if another pup is potted, say, in some gravel (would that be a good medium? Not sure, that's just the one I'd go with, but I grow only a few succulents, so I'm no expert), and not watered till there are roots, and if that pup does well -- then that's evidence that this is a good method. You know what I mean? This experiment would merely produce some more evidence that some rooting methods do indeed work much better than others. Kind of like verifying the knowledge that already exists in the community. That's why I said in my post, "You could ask on cactus & succulent forum, I'm sure they could tell you some good and bad ways to root aloes, and you could then try both the good and the bad methods for your experiments, and see if your results are consistent with what people on C&S forum would predict." But if Cory wants to make sure that no aloe pup is harmed in the conduction of the experiment :) , then this is definitely not the right experiment to try, you are absolutely right! And, well, there are definitely many many interesting experiments to try. I guess what I'm trying to say is, in the timeline of one semester, aloe pups won't do much more than hopefully grow a few roots. So if one is to stick with aloe pups for an experiment like this, it probably would have to be a rooting experiment. That's all. But maybe I'm wrong, like I said, I'm no expert. And there are certainly other awesome plants to use for a project!

Have you checked out all the Trades and Exchanges forums here? Dave

There seems to be some confusion again with common names - Aloe vera is Aloe vera :-) Although that term is sometimes used to refer to ANY kind of aloe, there are not two species of true or common, aka medicinal aloe. There ARE many species of aloe....as many as 400 have been registered but true aloe, Aloe vera (formerly Aloe barbadensis), is the one noted for medicinal purposes. There is some documentation that Aloe arborescens also has similar medicinal properties but as the species name suggests, this has a much more tree-like growth habit and develops a distinct stem or trunk. The difference in growth habits between the two plants shown in the pics is simply due to age and maturity. Aloe vera will form a full rosette if given sufficient time and proper growing conditions. Check the Wiki photo linked below. The smaller ones that appear to only grow laterally rather than in a round rosette of leaves are just young, immature plants (offsets or pups) and hampered from full development by lack of time and indoor growing conditions. Here is a link that might be useful: