succulent tree + red flower I.D. help please! New pic

[kait109]

Hello everyone and thank you for looking at my message, this is my first post on this site so I hope it works.
Would you please be able to help me with identifying a succulent tree I used to have before it was stolen from my garden? (Came home and it had been dug up and taken. It was a present, too, I was pretty upset, you might imagine)
You can see the foliage and habit from the attached photo so I won't go into that, but it was the flower, a unique and singular beauty which has me stumped and frustrated when I try to find it on the internet.
I'll try to describe the flower to the best of my non-knowledgeable mind:
The flower sat on a 20cm approx tall stem, (just enough to clear it from the hard sword-like leaves) located in the central top part of the plant. The flower itself, perched atop the stem, was a vivid red exterior, with a yellow interior (petals and anthers). Cup/trumpet-like in shape, narrower at the base and widening towards the top, the outer edges of the petals were formed in a wave-like shape as they opened outwards at the top of the flower. Like a vase, perhaps, as you go from base to tip, it was narrow, wider, then straight then slightly flared. The flower itself would have been roughly 10- 15cm in height and lasted only a few days.
Just one flower emerged; the plant was roughly 4 years old by then.
I have seen nothing like it.
Please help me if you can and put me out of my frustrated misery, I wish I could buy another.
Thank you sincerely for any help at all,
Kait

plant!.jpg (12.59 KiB) Viewed 1995 times

plant!.jpg (12.59 KiB) Viewed 1995 times

P.S., the flower looks a little like a Haemanthus or Scadoxus, if that helps?

plant!.jpg (12.59 KiB) Viewed 1995 times

[amanzed]

Do you have a larger photo (larger file), something with a little more detail? The posted photo is 12KB in size and lacks any detail.

[Saxicola]

The images are really small but my first reaction was to say Dracaena draco, but they have yellow flowers that bloom in big clusters. Where do you live? Your climate may help eliminate or add possible species. Many Pandanus species can look like that too, but they have very small flowers nothing like what you describe.

Sorry to hear someone took it. I am in the process of landscaping my new house and I've already decided that anything rare, or things I really, really like go in the back yard. More common plants will go in the front yard, so that if some jerk decides to take or damage something at least I won't be too attached to the plant and it is easy to replace.

[1bigfruit]

Wow, thats a great plant. Looks like aloe plicatilis, quire an old one. Aloe flowers fit the description. I dont really grow aloes but there are tree aloes, not all are rossetted. Two aloes have stacked leaves one of wich is plicatilis. I have seen large examples like that in the botanical gardens in Madiera. They were about chest height some taller. Does it grow in the slightly cooler months eg sept. oct, then again in april?

[kait109]

Hi there, thank you very much for replying, it does look like an aloe, you're absolutely right, I looked it up on google images. I'm not sure about the growth during the different months so I'm sorry I can't answer that, but it's the flower that totally stumps me because it wasn't a cluster like the Aloes I found on the net, instead it was like a big tulip thing all by it's lonesome. Really strange and doesn't fit anything I've come across. Would you please have any other ideas about it? Thank you again for your friendly post and cheers from Oz

[Tony]

Well it was an amazing plant whatever it was!
To bad you don't have an image of the flower, certainly not an Aloe or yucca or anything that I have seen with a flower like that.

[Saxicola]

The problem I'm having is there are relatively few woody monocots and I'm coming up nearly empty on any with a flower like you describe on a plant that looks like that. The only family of woody monocots with big individual flowers that could be called tulip-like is the Velloziaceae, but the only one big enough (that I'm aware of) is Vellozia gigantea which has a purple flower.

[1bigfruit]

Just a single flower on its own. Ah well unlikely to be aloe. But it does look succulent. Which rules out a palm. Perhaps someone accidentally sold you a rare new discovery. And then came to get it back.

[kait109]

Hello Saxicola,
Thank you for your post, I have looked up Vellozaceae and found a few pictures which look to be more in line with the mystery plant and it has revealed a new path for me to examine.
1bigfruit, thank you also for your help, this plant was brought into Australia from overseas, possibly Africa, would you know of any plants from there which are neither Aloe, nor Dracaena but similar?
I have also emailed a knowledgeable botanist who also knows nothing but who has been asking around as well.
Hopefully we're getting closer.
I appreciate your ideas.