28 WONDERS OF THE TROPICAL FORESTS. 
in Ceylon^ where it has mostly likely been introduced 
by early mariners, perhaps even by the I'hcenicians, as 
the prodigious diinenaioiis of the trees are alto^^ether 
inconsistent with the popular conjecture of a Portuguese 
origin. 
Another tree very characteristic of Africa, and fre- 
quently seen along with the baobab, is the large arbores- 
cent Euphorbiaj surmounted at the top with stiff leaves, 
branching out like the anus of a huge candelabra. Ifc 
adds greatly to the strange wilduess of the landscape, 
and seems quite in character witli the aspect of the 
unwieldy rhinoceros and the long-necked gimffe. 
Dracienas, or dragon-trees, are found growing on the 
west coast of Africa and in the Cape Colony, in Bourbon, 
and in China j but it is only in the Canary Islands^ in 
Madeira, and Porto Santo 
that they attain such 
gigantic dimensions as to 
entitle them torankamong 
the vegetable wonders of 
the world. 
Unfortunately, the 
venerable dragon-tree of 
OrotavaJnTeneriffe, which 
was already reverenced 
for its age by the extir- 
pated nation of the Guan- 
ches, and which the ad- 
venturous Bethencourts, 
tlie conquerors of the 
Canaries, found hardly 
less colossal and cavei-nous 
in 1402 than Ilnmboldt, 
who visited it in 1799, was destroyed by a storm in 187 1. 
Above the roots tlie illastrious traveller measured a circum- 
ference of forty-five feetj and according to Sir George 
Staunton, the trunk had still a diameter of four yards^ 
