Dragon's Blood

Dragon's blood is a bright red resin, and the name is given to the products of several distinct genera: rattan palms of Calamus, the Dracaena trees, Croton and Pterocarpus. This entry is the rattan source, Calamus draco, also known by its synonym Daemonorops draco, the name Cunningham, Kynes and Grieve use. It is a climbing palm whose clustered stems reach about fifteen metres, and whose leaf tips run out into long whips armed with grappling hooks. It grows from peninsular Thailand into western Malesia, and Grieve names Sumatra as the home of the best-known commercial kind. The resin coats the scaly, cherry-sized fruit and is broken off, steamed off, or shaken off in coarse canvas bags, then rolled into balls or sold as sticks, tears and lumps; in Indonesia it is called jernang. Calamus resin is now the kind most often sold as dragon's blood. It has served as a varnish and red colouring, and in China it reddened furniture and the paper of wedding and New Year banners. Grieve records that it was once given as an astringent but had come to be thought inert. In magical practice it is burned to call back a straying lover, carried or smouldered for protection, and added in a pinch to other incenses to strengthen them; in hoodoo it draws love and money and clears away negative energy.