Endemic to the Yemeni island of Socotra, it grows wild nowhere else on Earth
The dragon's blood tree.
Nature · Ferns, grasses & other plants
Dragon's blood tree
Evergreen tree · to 10 m · IUCN Vulnerable
Dracaena cinnabari — Asparagaceae
The dragon's blood tree is the emblem of Socotra, the Yemeni island in the Arabian Sea, and grows nowhere else. It branches again and again in equal forks until the whole crown makes a dense upturned umbrella, a shape that funnels the mountain mist down the trunk and shades its own roots. Cut the bark and it bleeds a crimson resin, the dragon's blood of ancient trade, used as dye, varnish and medicine. It is assessed as Vulnerable and its populations are old, with almost no young trees replacing them.
How to spot them
- ▸An upturned-umbrella or mushroom crown, unmistakable against a bare mountain skyline
- ▸Repeated equal forking (dichotomous branching), each fork ending in a rosette of stiff sword-shaped leaves
- ▸Bare grey trunk with no side branches below the crown
- ▸Crimson resin bleeding from any cut in the bark
- ▸Limestone plateaux and mountain slopes of Socotra, roughly 300–1,500 m up
How to know it
Its crown branches in repeated equal forks into a dense upturned umbrella that funnels mist down the trunk
The dragon's blood tree — dichotomous branching.
Cut the bark and it bleeds a crimson resin, traded since antiquity as a dye, varnish and medicine
The dragon's blood tree; its epithet, cinnabari, refers to cinnabar red.
Its populations are overmature: grazing goats eat the seedlings, so almost nothing is replacing the old trees
The dragon's blood tree, assessed by the IUCN as Vulnerable.
Despite the look of a palm, it belongs to the asparagus family, alongside the houseplants of its own genus
The dragon's blood tree, Dracaena cinnabari.
Its Canary Island relative, Dracaena draco, shares the resin and the name but not the island
The dragon's blood tree of Socotra.
Quick-fire facts
- •Endemic to Socotra, Yemen; found mostly on the central and eastern highlands from about 300 m to 1,500 m
- •Assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (assessment of 2004), under criterion B2ab(iii)
- •Threats are overgrazing by goats, which removes all regeneration, a drying climate, and unsustainable resin tapping
- •The red resin, 'dragon's blood', was a classical trade good used as a dye, varnish, tooth polish and wound medicine
- •cinnabari refers to cinnabar, the red mercury ore, from the colour of the resin
- •Belongs to the asparagus family Asparagaceae — the same genus as many houseplant dracaenas
- •The dichotomous crown shape harvests moisture from sea mist and shades the roots
- •Socotra's flora is famously endemic — roughly a third of its plant species occur nowhere else — and the archipelago is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- •Dracaena draco of the Canary Islands and Madeira is the other famous dragon tree
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — Dracaena cinnabari (Dragon's Blood Tree)
- Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Dracaena cinnabari Balf.f.