They do look like different individuals (at least they are in different pots). Compare these 2 photos
I do not have any opinion about the identity of the plant in question, just a few thoughts about the proposed name for it.
Altman has been selling a plant (presumably a hybrid of castilloniae) using various names. The label I saw (link below) has the following info on it.
Altman Star Aloe Star TM / Aloe castilloniae Hybrid Blue PPAF
and the discussion refers to it as "Blue Castilloniae Hybrid", which is apparently a sister seedling of "Wildfire".
https://www.agaveville.org/vie...
Two issues here. One is naming. We have no database entry for "Blue Castilloniae" and I don't think we likely will. That is a terrible name for a cultivar because it's the name of a species (castilloniae) with a color in front ... which as you might imagine could give rise to all sorts of confusion. Likewise "Blue Hybrid" and "Blue Castilloniae Hybrid" are also pretty bad names for an aloe, in my opinion anyway, because of the distinct lack of specificity. "Altman Star" would be a whole lot better, if that's the actual cultivar name.
If anyone can point me in the direction of the relevant patent, I would be happy to create a database entry for the plant. I was unable to find one.
The second issue here is I have no idea how anybody would know the difference between this so-called "Blue Hybrid" and "Wildfire" based on a small plant for sale in a store, grown soft or under unknown conditions. They are really really similar. The proliferation of very similar plants with different names is not great, and I wish it would stop, though obviously it won't any time soon. There is a pretty strong $ incentive for the breeders to go crazy with new names and plants.
So the simplest solution would be to move the image in question to the genus entry for Aloe if it doesn't correspond to 'Purple People Eater'. I would leave the decision up to Angelo, if and when he chooses to weigh in on this thread.
