624 DRACHMA DRACO {THE DRAGON TREE). [Feb 



DBACJ^NA DRACO {THE DRAGON TREE)* 



THIS is the most peculiar of the rich and varied vegetable 

 productions of the Canary Islands. These islands, from 

 their remarkable geographical position and the great altitude of the 

 Peak of Teneriffe, present a much greater variety in their flora than 

 any other equal area on the earth. Teneriffe itself illustrates in its 

 flora the cliaracteristics of nearly every zone of vegetation in the 

 world, from that of the tropics to the high arctic regions. But the 

 most curious and interesting of all the species in these islands is the 

 subject of our illustration on the opposite page. It belongs to the 

 great and varied family Liliacccc, of which very few of the species 

 assume arboreal character and proportions, being chiefly bulbous or 

 fibrous-rooted herbaceous plants. The Aloii dichotoma of the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and the grass tree {Xantliorrhma hastilis) of Australia, 

 are arborescent forms belonging to the same great natural order, but 

 they are dwarfs as compared with the dragon tree. The tree has a 

 grim, weird antediluvian appearance about it, suggestive of the idea 

 that it is a survival of ages past, and that it may have witnessed 

 the struggles for existence whose records are written in the strata of 

 the earth. It was an object of Druidical veneration for centuries 

 before Christianity appeared on earth, and the hollow trunks of some 

 of the older trees were used by the early Christians as places of 

 worship. One specimen, the largest then known, died recently. 

 It stood in the garden of the Marquessa de Sansal at Orotava. It 

 was of enormous dimensions, and its hollow stem was used by the 

 Spaniards so far back as 149.'3 as a chapel in which to celebrate 

 holy mass. The trunk was between 70 and 80 feet high and 

 nearly 50 feet in circumference at the base, with very little taper, 

 rising like a huge pillar, rudely scarred and surmounted by a crown 

 of long sword-shaped leaves, tough, leathery, and dark-bluish olive- 

 green. A red resinous juice exudes from the trunk, which on 

 exposure to the air becomes concrete, and forms a kind of dragon's 

 blood, whence the popular name of the tree, It is not, however, 

 the true dragon's blood of commerce, which is the product of a 

 Calamus {C. draco), a native of India and the Moluccas. The 

 substance is collected and used for various purposes. Having formerly 

 been credited with astringent qualities, it was used in medicine, but 

 is now rarely employed except as a colouring for tinctures, the true 



* We have pleasure in acknowledging our indebtedness to Mr. G. Harris Stone, 

 22 Buckingham Street, Strand, London, for permission to use the copy of his 

 photograi)h of this famous tree. 



