Tenerife Dragon Tree: A Woody Plant of Ancient Lineage Becomes the Canary Islands' Icon

The Tenerife Dragon Tree also answers to the names of:

• Canary Islands Dragon Tree;
• Cape Verde Dragon Tree;
• Madeira Dragon Tree;
• Morocco Dragon Tree;
• Porto Santo Dragon Tree.

The name indeed clarifies the tree’s native range. The tree is native to certain Atlantic Ocean coastlines and islands. Specifically, its homelands occur in the dry, rocky, sunlit slopes of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco ( المغرب , al-Maghrib) and of Macaronesia:

• Canary Islands (Las Islas Canarias), Spain;
• Cape Verde Islands (As Ilhas de Cabo Verde);
• Madeira Island (A Ilha da Madeira), Portugal;
• Porto Santo Island (A Ilha do Porto Santo), Portugal.

The Tenerife Dragon Tree also can be called the Azores Dragon Tree. It is not native to the Azores Islands (As Ilhas dos Açores). It instead represents a woody plant successfully introduced and naturalized into Portugal’s islands in the mid-North Atlantic Ocean.

Tenerife Dragon Trees likewise do not look to Blue Chaffinches for natural propagation. According to  author Lance Chilton, tradition maintains that germination requires jump-starting by passing the tree’s seeds through the digestive tracts of now-extinct, large, “flightless, dodolike” pigeons (Chilton, “Dragon trees on La Palma, Canary Islands”). But Lance reports no record of such birds anywhere in Macaronesia. He further reveals that seeds germinate successfully independent of avian or human interventions.

The Tenerife Dragon Tree attains its maximum age by surviving the three stages in its above-ground growth. The first stage begins with growing the trunk. It closes 10 to 15 years later with terminal buds flowering at the trunk's top.

The second stage commences a succession of 10 to 15-year intervals whose beginning involves flowering, fruiting and seeding. The flower is a branching, sweet-smelling green or pink-white cluster. The fruit is a coral, orange-brown or orange-red, sweettasting berry slightly smaller than a cherry. The white seed may germinate within 28 days.

The third stage signals the canopy's formation from green, overlapping, prickly leaves.

The Tenerife Dragon Tree naturally belongs in a subtropical climate. In its native environment, it expects the conditions which prevail on islands located between the world's temperate and the tropical climate zones. It therefore is adept at  handling:

• High levels of heat and light;
• Low levels of moisture, nutrients and rainfall;
• Natural dispersion of seeds by wildlife and wind;
• Regular drainage of alkaline, gravelly, rocky soils which may be as high in calcium as they are low in nitrogen.

But cultivators, gardeners, and plant collectors and enthusiasts do not need to feel discouraged or dispirited if they do not live on islands or within subtropical climate zones. The Tenerife Dragon Tree in fact is an adaptable survivor as a native plant in its natural environment and as an introduced plant outside its native range. Its growing needs indeed will be met with its owner's careful attention to and cautious provision of:

• Above-freezing temperatures;
• Complete, time-release, watersoluble fertilizer applications 1 to 2 times yearly, in fall and in spring;
• 4 to 6 hours of daily sunlight;
• Non-waterlogging, well-drained soil;
• Supplemental watering at the rate of about 1 inch (2.54 centimeter) 1 to 2 times monthly.

Whether native or naturalized, wild or cultivated, the Tenerife Dragon Tree can weather many environmental stresses. It especially rises to the challenges of alkaline, arid, bright, and/or nutrient-poor environments. But it will find its survival compromised at home and abroad when confronted with:

• Competition over intensive land use from agroindustry and construction;
• Prolonged experiences with the nibbling of its seeds by small mammals and of its seedlings by such grazing mammals as goats and rabbits;
• Protracted exposure to heavy flooding, rainfall, surface run-off, and/or waterlogging;
• Proximity to controlled burns and wildfires.

Otherwise, Tenerife Dragon Trees will be expected to outlive their owners by hundreds of years.

Ancient and modern uses generally can be characterized as unchanging for the Tenerife Dragon Tree. Since the fifteenth century, the tree contributes to three key societal concerns. Specifically, its role is defined as;

• Aesthetic;
• Medicinal;
• Ritualistic.

In all regards, the tree's role is carried out through its resin. The resin is produced from wounding the bark and/or leaves. It runs a red color which is likened to that of the dragon blood spilled in the Garden of the Hesperides.

According to ancient Greek beliefs, the 100-headed dragon named Ladon guarded the garden's entrance. The heroic Hercules had to retrieve three golden apples from the garden as the eleventh of twelve tasks which he was charged to accomplish. He realized his quest, but was forced to kill Ladon in the process. From Ladon's blood sprouted the world's dragon trees.

The aesthetics of attractive, bright,  garnet red color can be appreciated. Since ancient times, the resin cooperates as a stain and varnish for furniture and objects made of wood. For example, the resin's red colorant 7,4-dihydroxy-5-methoxy-flavylium (dracoflavylium) produces the incomparable look of the Stradivarius violin. For another example, the resin also serves to color:

• Paste;
• Plaster;
• Textiles;
• Toothpaste. 

The resin's medicinal use arose from its color and its supposed origins. Traditional medical practitioners indeed linked the resin's color to that of the blood which was spilled in the tree's creation. They therefore used the resin to treat such problems with blood flow as:

• Chest pains;
• Internal bleeding, irregularity or trauma;
• Wounds.

The resin came to be used ritualistically for:

• Embalming;
• Incense.

It dried into an attractive garnet red powder. The powder's burning was dramatically fragrant.

In modern times, two other uses can be added. The resin is used in photoengraving. The tree also serves as a drought-tolerant ornamental tree in sustainable landscapes.

Of all its attributes, aesthetic, commercial, and medicinal, Tenerife dragon's tree most cherished would seem to be the inspirational aesthetics of its enduring presence in the oceanic landscape. Prehistorically Tenerife's dragon trees were revered by the resplendent island's aboriginal Berber inhabitants, the Guanches (Guan, "person" + Chinet, native name for Tenerife), whose migration from North Africa is dated to around 1000 B.C.E. or even earlier. Myth, prehistory, history, and future are all represented in this long-lived, ubiquitous woody plant with its ancient lineage. In a paradise thriving with an exciting profusion of diverse, unique fauna and flora, Dracaena draco emerges as a treasured icon, not only of Tenerife, but of the entire archipelago.

My special thanks to:

• Talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the Internet;

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

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• Available via HathiTrust at: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009547565

Barker-Webb, Phillip, and Sabine Berthelot. Histoire Naturelle des Ile Canaries. Atlas. Paris: Béthune, éditeur, MDCCCXXXVIII (1838).

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Chilton, Lance. "Dragon trees on La Palma, Canary Islands." Marengo. www.marengowalks.com.

• Available at: http://www.marengowalks.com/lpdraco.html

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• Available via HathiTrust at: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106335771
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• Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library at:  http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/63302

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