Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom 
I have an Aloe plant, not an Aloe Vera but was expecting to be able to get the gel out of it. It has grown quite big now and some of the leaves are nice and fat and it has lots of 'babies' growing round the base too. The lady in the garden centre said to cut the tip of the leaf off and squeeze the gel out but there does not seem to be any inside. Then I saw on the TV someone took a leaf off and cut in lengthwise. I am not sure of the difference between Aloe and Aloe Vera - help!!
9 Apr, 2010
Answers
Be sure that you know what kind you have! Almost all have a gel-like material in the leaf. buut...while Aloe vera itself is medicinal, and A. saponaria is also--though slightly more hazardous--the others range from useless to caustic!
9 Apr, 2010
thanks to you both for the information on Aloe and I might just have to buy another plant!! I will google as suggested for even more info
10 Apr, 2010
Previous question
Aloe vera is one of a group of plants called aloe and is the one that produces lots of gel and is the most appropriate for our uses. From what I can tell, it seems that many of them do produce gel, but not all are very useful.That sort of implies that some of them don't produce gel, or not very much anyway. If you google aloe vera plant, you should be able to find some pictures of it to compare with your aloe.
9 Apr, 2010