DRAGON'S BLOOD, a red-coloured resin 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 Archi pelago. 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 substance in commerce 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. If heated it gives off benzoic acid. In Europe it was once valued as a medicine on account of its astrin gent properties, and is now used for colouring varnishes and lac quers ; in China, where it is mostly consumed, it is employed to give a red facing to writing paper. The drop dragon's blood of commerce is still one of the products of Socotra, and is obtained from Dracaena cinnabari. The dragon's blood of the Canary Islands is a resin procured from the surface of the leaves and from cracks in the trunk of Dracaena draco. The hardened juice of a euphorbiaceous tree, Croton draco, a resin resembling kino, is the dragon's blood of the Mexicans, used by them as a vulnerary and astrineent.