I had to write about this magnificent tree after my conversation with a friend newly acquainted to me. We were talking about books; I told him I was reading Wade Davis’ autobiography, The Serpent and the Rainbow, and explained to him that it was about Professor Davis’ journey as an ethno-botanist seeking to find the supposed plant responsible for inducing the process of turning people into “zombis”. With this he became flustered and spouted things about Wicca and witchcraft, which seems to be a common response to me whenever I talk about the book. Anyways, he told me his mom was into “botany,” by which explanation he gave me, I think he meant something more along the lines of Wicca, and told me she even had a bottle of actual dragon’s blood.

With this I couldn’t help but smile, I explained to him that dragon’s blood wasn’t actually blood from a dragon but an ink or resin extracted most commonly from plants of the Dracaena family. He responded with a simple “Oh.”

The spectacular speciman captured in the photo above is Dracaena Draco. It is indigenous to the Canary Islands and is rare in natural occurrence, but it’s commonly cultivated in gardens for aesthetic purposes. Dracaena is the Roman spelling for the ancient Greek word for female dragon, Draco just being the Latin word for dragon. On average, this tree grows to about 20 feet and it’s branches naturally ascend to form a unique mushroom shape, uncommon to most palms.

Dragon’s blood can be made of a large array of plants, but blood made from Dracaena Draco is true dragon’s blood. It is made from the plant’s dark red sap, most likely thinned out with other substances to prevent it from hardening and so it can be used as an ink or incense. Dragon’s blood was typically used in protection spells in association with the god of war, Ares or Mars.

Scientific name: Dracaena Draco
Common names: Dragon Tree

http://www.floridata.com/ref/D/drac_dra.cfm
http://www.eol.org/pages/1087629