86 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



( 12 ) p. 16." The dragon-tree of Orotava." 



This colossal dragon-tree, Dracaena draco, stands in the 

 garden of Dr. Franqui in the small town of Oratava, the 

 ancient Taoro, one of the most delightful spots in the world. 

 In June 1799, when we ascended the Peak of Teneriffe, we 

 measured the circumference of the tree, and found it nearly 

 48 English feet. Our measurement was taken several feet 

 above the root. Lower down, and nearer to the ground, 

 Le Dru made it nearly 79 English feet. Sir George 

 Staunton found the diameter still as much as 12 feet at the 

 height of 10 feet above the ground. The height of the tree 

 is not much above 69 English feet. According to tradition, 

 this tree was venerated by the Guanches (as was the ash-tree 

 of Ephesus by the Greeks, or as the Lydian plane-tree which 

 Xerxes decked with ornaments, and the sacred Banyan-tree 

 of Ceylon), and at the time of the first expedition of the 

 Bethencourts in 1402, it was already as thick and as hollow 

 as it now is. Remembering that the Dracseua grows 

 extremely slowly, we are led to infer the high antiquity of 

 the tree of Orotava. Bertholet, in his description of Teneriffe, 

 says, "En comparant les jeunes Dragonniers, voisins de 

 Farbre gigantesque, les calculs qu'on fait sur Tage de ce 

 dernier effraient rimagination." (Nova Acta Acad. Leop. 

 Carol. Naturae Curiosorum, T. xiii. 1827, p. 781.) The 

 dragon-tree has been cultivated in the Canaries, and in 

 Madeira and Porto Santo, from the earliest times ; and an 

 accurate observer, Leopold von Buch, has even found it wild 

 in Teneriffe, near Igueste. Its original country, therefore, 

 is not India, as had long been believed ; nor does its appear- 



