Dracaena draco (L.) L.
Eng.: Atlas dragon tree. Spa.: Drago del Atlas. Fre.: Dragonnier de l’Atlas. Tam.: Ajgal, achgal.
Tree, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 20 m in height with an umbrella shape. Branching very peculiar, since the tree has one straight trunk that does not begin to branch until the first flowering (which can occur in 10 to 15 years); or due to other circumstances, but always when having reached some degree of maturity, it only then loses its only vegetative terminal bud, and 2-6 buds will then result in the first branching. Cultivated specimens sometimes become really large without ever branching. Bark silver, bright in the stems of young trees, ashy-brown and fissured in old trunks; the branches are dotted with the scars left by falling leaves, scars that gradually disappear as the branches grow in diameter. In older trees often aerial roots hang from the branches. Leaves grouped in dense rosettes on the terminal end of each branch; closely linear-lanceolate (40-60 × 2-3 cm), sessile, coriaceous, glabrous, flexible, very acute, but not prickly, green-ashy in colour, reddish-orange at the base. Inflorescence branched in terminal or subterminal racemes. Flowers hermaphrodite, small (15-25 mm in diameter), with only one whorl of 6 sepals, white-pink or white-yellowish. Stamens 6, expanded with the sepals. Anthers yellow or greenish. Fruit globose berry 1-1.5 cm in diameter, with reddish-orange skin, coriaceous and bright. Inside it usually bears one seed (rarely 2) globose, with a smooth surface.
Flowering:
The periods of flowering and fruiting of this species are highly variable. Flowering is basically during winter, but can continue onto spring and even summer.
Fruiting:
Dependant on the time of flowering, occurs between summer and winter.
Habitat:
Currently limited to inaccessible rocky outcrops (400-1,300 m in altitude), with average annual rainfall of 400-500 mm, on inframediterranean and thermomediterranean floors. Before human intervention, in Morocco it would have formed forests together with junipers, sandarac trees, wild olives, Atlas mastic trees, evergreen oaks, bay trees and argans. Here it coexists with other interesting species such as Davallia canariensis, Asplenium aethiopicum, Selaginella rupestris and Aeonium korneliuslemsii.
Distribution:
Macaronesian region: grows in the Canary, Madeira and Cape Verde Islands; on the African continent its populations are situated in SW Morocco, in the western Anti-Atlas, in the rocky cliffs of the valley of the river Umarhuz (massifs of the jbel Imzi and the jbel Adad Medni).
Observations:
D. draco had been considered until 1996 endemic to the Macaronesian islands. However, in June of that year a population of dragos was discovered in the gorges of the Oumarhouz River (western Anti-Atlas) composed of hundreds, possibly thousands, of specimens growing in inaccessible crags: trees up to 15 m in height, of eminent native character. In 1997, the authors that discovered them used morphological analysis of these atlasic trees to separate the continental dragos from the island ones into subspecific level: D. draco subsp. ajgal Benabid & Cuzin. Just one year later, a new species was described in the Canary Islands: D. tamaranae A. Marrero, R.S. Almeida & González-Martínez. These authors made a detailed comparison of the dragos of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula describing the existence of 2 Atlantic species. Atlantic drago (D. draco) in Morocco, Cape Verde, Canary and Madeira Islands, and Gran Canaria dragon tree (D. tamaranae), endemic to the Island of Gran Canaria.
Conservation status:
The drago formerly occupied large extensions of land in the lowlands of SW Morocco and in Macaronesian Islands. But nowadays it has been brought to near-extinction in the wild. In Morocco only a few hundred specimens survive in inaccessible outcrops. One of the most harmful uses of this species here has been its felling to make hives with the trunks after being hollowed. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed at a global level as Vulnerable (VU) (Bañares et al., 1998).