DRAGON’S BLOOD, a name applied to the resins obtained from several species of plants. Calamus Draco (Willd.), one of the Rotang or Rattan Palms, which produces much of the dragon’s blood of commerce, is a native of Further India and the Eastern Archipelago. When young it grows erect, but with age it becomes climbing. The leaves are pointed, about a foot, long, of a finger’s breadth, and, like the stems, armed with spines. The flower has a three-cleft corolla, and the ovary is egg-shaped. The fruit is round, pointed, scaly, and the size of a large cherry, and when ripe is coated with the resinous exudation known as dragon’s blood. The finest dragon’s blood, called jernang or djemang in the East Indies, is obtained by beating or shaking the gathered fruits, sifting out impurities, and melting by exposure to the heat of the sun or by placing in boiling water; the resin thus purified is then usually moulded into sticks or quills (the sanguis draconis in baculis of pharmacy), and wrapped in reeds or palm-leaves, and is then ready for market. An impurer and inferior kind, sold in lumps of considerable size (sanguis draconis in massis), is extracted from the fruits by boiling. Dragon’s blood is dark red-brown, nearly opaque, and brittle, contains small shell-like flakes, and gives when ground a fine red powder; it is soluble in alcohol, ether, and fixed and volatile oils, and in the pure condition has, according to F. W. Johnston (Phil. Trans., 1839, p. 134), the composition C 20 H 21 O 4 . If heated it gives off fumes of benzoic acid. In Europe it was once valued as a medicine on account of its astringent properties, and is now used for colouring plasters, dentrifice, and varnishes; in China, where it is mostly consumed, it is employed to give a red facing to ...