English: Dragon tree; Dragon’s blood tree; Drago de Canarias; Snake plant.
Synonym: Sansevieria trifasciata
Clades: Dracaenaceae; Asparagaceae; Liliales.

Botanical keys• Small family containing two genera: Dracaena with some 60 species, and Sansevieria with about 60-80 species.
• Majority of Dracaena species native to Africa and nearby islands, with a few in southern Asia and one in tropical Central America.
• Genus Sansevieria centred in tropical Africa and southern Asia, inhabiting rocky, arid soils, but tolerating a wide range of soil conditions.
• While included in Agavaceae or Ruscaceae in some systems, the Dracaenaceae is here treated as a separate family, following APG II and because of the shared dragon-snake symbolism.

Botanical features• Extremely slow-growing tree with silver-grey trunk and lance-shaped leathery leaves in large terminal rosettes.
• Can grow 12-19 m high, with a girth of 12m.
• Native range: Canary Islands, Madeira, Cape Verde.
• Habitat: Dry bush at low elevations of rocky mountain ranges.
• Flowers small, creamy-white, bell-shaped, in branched spikes, fragrant at night.
• Fruits pea-sized, sweet, yellowish-orange, very fleshy.
• Flowering causes stem to branch, which it does about every 10-15 years, creating the umbrella-shaped crown resembling a multi-headed hydra.
• Crown spreads to 9 m or more, with thick sausage-like branches held at gravity-defying angles for such heavy limbs.
• Seeds at one time dispersed by an endemic, dodo-like, flightless bird processing the seeds through its digestive tract, which stimulated germination. Because of its extinction, naturally occurring dragon trees are becoming very rare.
• Susceptible to frost damage.
• Name from the Gr. drakaina, a female dragon. Draco = dragon-lizard.
• Belongs to a genus of 40-60 species of subshrubs and trees, often of grotesque form, but also cultivated as ordinary houseplants looking nothing like their famous cousins.

Three distinct periods‘The dragon’s blood trees in the Canary Islands are unique in having their lives divided into three distinct periods - juvenile, maturity, senility. The first stage usually lasts twenty-five to thirty years. The second stage, in which reproduction occurs, is of indefinite extent, perhaps hundreds of years. In this period the scars of fallen leaves disappear, the thickness of the trunk is increased, and branches form. The senile stage may last indefinitely, and is marked by the formation of aerial roots and excrescences of resin. This “dragon’s blood” has been found in the sepulchral caves of prehistoric men in the Canaries and has hence been supposed to have been used by them in embalming their dead.’ [Menninger 1967]

Fighting the dragon In England the garden of beauty is kept
By a dragon of prudery placed within call.
But so oft the unamiable dragon hath slept.
That the garden’s but carelessly watched after all.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

‘Awareness of loss of Paradise,’ writes Stevens, ‘has resulted in profound nostalgia for it, intense fantasies of having it restored in Heaven, and in attempts to find or recreate Paradise on earth. Nostalgia for the womb, for the Golden Age, for the life of Rousseau’s Noble Savage, represents a desire to put the clock back to a more innocent, unpolluted past, to live in harmony with nature.’
Paradise is where the human condition is transcended by natural means to regain a divine state of affairs. It is the Garden of Eden in the Christian tradition, Valhalla for the Vikings, Avalon for the Celts, the Isles of the Immortals for the Chinese, while Paradise could also be envisioned as places of fabulous wealth, eg El Dorado, or of idyllic tranquillity, i.e. Arcadia, Utopia, Atlantis, Shangri-la, Shambala, amongst others.
Such mystical places of peace and sanctuary, usually come in the form of gardens, where nature is restored to its original state, or islands, which are reached at the end of a long voyage and offer protection from enemies and predators.
The ancient Greeks placed their mythical Paradise in the East, the source of the rising sun, as the Island of Bliss, or on the edge of the inhabited world to the West of the setting sun, in the Garden of the Hesperides. The former has been identified as the Isle of Socotra [see Aloe], the latter as the Canary Islands. Nymphs singing songs of captivating beauty, the Hesperides, or ‘Daughters of Evening’, lived in a western garden beyond the sunset on an island at the far ends of the earth where Atlas, their father, held up the rim of the sky. In the garden grew golden apples, its entrance guarded by a dragon or giant serpent, Ladon. The Roman poet Virgil described the scene thus: ‘… the dragon which dwelt in and protected the Garden of the Hesperides, lying in the far-off country of the Moors where the sun sets and the huge mountain of Atlas bears the heavens on his shoulders.’
Synonymous with the serpent as a diabolical symbol, though as often representing the life force, subtlety and the wisdom of the Word, the dragon, the guardian of the threshold, must be slain or incorporated to gain entrance to Paradise. Heroes, conquerors and creators must fight the dragon for mastery or occupation of the territory that he guards. The struggle symbolises the difficulties to be overcome in gaining the treasures of inner knowledge and in attaining self-mastery.
Ladon branched into many heads, like the Dracaena tree, as he coiled about the Tree sprouting the golden apples, symbols of immortality. After its death by the hand of Heracles, Ladon was immortalised in the sky as the northern constellation Draco, curling between the Great and Little Bears, and next to Heracles himself. Legend states that a tree grew from the blood of the dragon, the dragon tree or Dracaena draco. The alleged location of the fabled garden, an island beyond the Atlas Mountains [Morocco], would appear to indicate that this tree is indeed the basis of the myth. [Many believe the Canary Islands to be the remnants of the lost Atlantis.]
The tree oozes a blood-red resin from its trunk and leaves, whence its name dragon’s blood tree. The reputation of dragon’s blood as having come from a slain dragon makes the allegory of victory over evil implicit, whilst the relief of suffering through the use of the wounded tree provides a double symbolism.
The ancients imbued dragon’s blood with limitless virtues, bringing it from either the Canary Islands or Socotra, where the species Dracaena cinnabari is endemic. According to legend, the latter species sprang from the mixed spilled blood of a dragon and an elephant fighting to death.
In medieval times dragon’s blood was believed to return what had been lost, in particular love, second only to paradise in causing agony and nostalgia when lost. Deserted wives and maidens used it as a love incense. If burned near an open window in their lonely bedrooms for seven midnights in a row the escaping fumes would bring back the straying husband or lover sooner or later.

Dragon’s bloodDracaena resin was sought by various cultures around the Mediterranean, Europe, and Africa.
As a substitute for the real thing, which actual dragons were unlikely to volunteer, resinous dragon’s blood supposedly held magical powers. Bathing in it would make one invulnerable to stab wounds, drinking it enabled a person to understand the speech of birds and animals.
Regarding its medicinal properties, Gerard, who calls the tree Draco Arbor, says that Sanguis Draconis ‘hath an astringent faculty, and is with good successe used in the overmuch flowing of the courses, in fluxes, Dysenteries, spitting of blood, fastening loose teeth, and such other affects which require astriction’.
In the Canary Islands, the resin has long been used magically, medicinally as well as practically, eg it is used as a wash to promote healing and stop bleeding, internally to treat chest pains, internal traumas, post-partum bleeding and menstrual irregularities; it is regarded as a herb of protection, purification and energy.
It is also used to produce incense and varnishes used to stain and polish wood. It was well known as the source for the varnish used by 18th century Italian builders of Stradivarius violins.
Not unique to Dracaena, red resinous dragon’s blood can be obtained from a number of unrelated species, such as the palms Pterocarpus draco, Daemonorops draco [previously Calamus draco] and five other Daemonorops species, and Croton spp. of the Euphorbia family.
In case of clamour and clatter in paradise, Cunningham advices to ‘powder some dragon’s blood, mix it with sugar and salt, and place it in a bottle. Cover this tightly and secure it somewhere in your house where it won’t be found. You’ll have peace and quiet.’ [Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs]
Oddly enough, some participants in the dream proving noticed the opposite: nocturnal peace and quiet returned after the remedy was removed from the house!

SYMPTOMS

≈ Shortly after lying down in bed, sensation of swimming through underwater caves, the space keeping on expanding until finally resulting in the sensation of lying under a vast vaulting firmament with shining stars, as if lying outside. Impressive.
≈ Dreams of earthquakes [2 pr.]; of collapsing buildings [while inside them].
≈ Dreams of remote past; of old friends and old relics. [2 pr.]
≈ Dreams of buildings with high arched ceilings and pillars.
≈ Dreams of farewell and funeral preparations.
≈ Rushed feeling. Dreams of running, hustling and bustling, high speed [5 pr.].
≈ Persistent thought during the day: ‘Wish I was a catfish swimming in the deep blue sea’.

≈ Sleep position: like a flamingo with one foot bent against knee.
≈ Short sleep; wide awake at 3-4 a.m. Short sleep refreshes. [2 pr.]
≈ Sensation of being wide awake while asleep.
≈ Pressing pain in forehead / temples in morning on waking, as after alcohol.
≈ Sensation of heat around nose spreading over whole of face.
≈ Drawing rheumatic sensation in knee while driving car.