Dragons Blood

Dragon's Blood, a dark red-brown resin, nearly oraque, brittle, soluble in alcohol, ether, and oils; of a fine red colour when powdered, giving off fumes of benzoic acid when heated, and said to have the composition C₂₀H₂₁O₄. It coats the cherry-like fruits of Daemonorops Draco, one of the rattan palms of the Malay archipelago, the best quality, moulded in sticks ("sanguis draconis in baculis"), being melted off them, whilst the inferior lump kind ("sanguis draconis in massis") is extracted by boiling. A similar resin exuding from cracks in the trunk of Dracaena (q.v.) Draco, in the Canaries gives it the name of Dragon-tree. Dragon's blood is now employed to colour oils and varnishes, to stain horn in imitation of tortoise-shell and wood in imitation of rosewood, in dentifrice, and in plasters.