ISO 
“Notes on the Giant Dragon’s-blood Tree at Orotava,” by 
Mr. John Plant, F.G.S. 
Last August, as my friend, Mr. John Higgin, was on bis 
return from the Philippines to visit old England once more, 
he made a detour from Lisbon to the Canary Islands to see 
the cochineal plantations as well as the physical wonders at 
TenerifFe. He made a pilgrimage to Orotava, to behold for 
himself the renowned patriarchal Dragon-tree, which in one 
spot had survived 6000 years of mundane changes all around, 
only to find every vestige of its existence swept away— 
fifteen years before it had been broken down in a great gale. 
A good part of it had gone for dye-wood, the chips and 
fragments had been burnt, and visitors had carried off the 
remainder. He offered inducements to the natives, and the 
ground upon which the old tree had stood was dug into and 
several pieces of the hark were found, three of which I have 
now to bring before you as the very last remains of the old 
giant of Orotava. 
The Canary Islands were known to history in the year 
1330, and the tree in 1402. In 1493 Alonzo del Lugo claimed 
the islands under the Spanish authority. He relates that this 
hollow Dragon-tree was in use by the Guanche Indians as a 
temple for heathen rites, but that he reformed such practices 
and made it into a chapel for holy mass. Other Spanish 
historians and voyagers have left records of visits to Orotava 
in succeeding centuries, which it is not necessary to repro- 
duce here, except in the instance of Baron Von Humboldt, 
who visited the Canaries in June, 1799, when on his first 
journey for exploration in Central and South America. 
His narrative of this visit runs : “ Although we had been 
made acquainted from the narrative of many travellers with 
the Dragon-tree of the garden of M. Franqui, we were not 
the less struck with its enormous magnitude. We were 
told that the trunk of this tree, which is mentioned in very 
ancient documents, was as gigantic in the 15th century as 
