DRACAENA

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 463 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DIO-DRO

DRACAENA , in botany, a genus of the natural order Liliaceae, containing about fifty species in the warmer parts of the Old World. They are trees or shrubs with long, generally narrow leaves, panicles of small whitish

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

, and berried fruit. The most remarkable species is Dracaena Draco, the

dragon

DRAGON (Fr. dragon, through Lat. draco, from the Greek; connected with SEpeoµay " see," and interpreted as " sharp-sighted "; O.H. Ger. tracho, dracho, M.H.G. trache, Mod. Ger. Drachen; A.S. draca, hence the equivalent English form " drake," " fire-drake,

-tree of the

Canary

CANARY
CANARY (Serinus canarius)

Isles, which reaches a

great

GREAT

size and age. The famous specimen in Teneriffe, which was blown down by a hurricane in 1868, when measured by Alexander von Humboldt, was 70 ft. high, with a circumference of 45 ft. several feet above the ground. A resin exuding from the trunk is known as

dragon

DRAGON (Fr. dragon, through Lat. draco, from the Greek; connected with SEpeoµay " see," and interpreted as " sharp-sighted "; O.H. Ger. tracho, dracho, M.H.G. trache, Mod. Ger. Drachen; A.S. draca, hence the equivalent English form " drake," " fire-drake,

's blood (q.v.).
Many of the cultivated so-called Dracaenas belong to the closely-allied genus Cordyline. They are grown for the beauty of form, colour and variegation of their foliage and are extremely useful as decorative stove plants or summer greenhouse plants, or for room and table decoration. They are easy to grow and may be increased by cuttings planted in sandy soil in a temperature of from 65 to 70 by night, the

spring

SPRING (from " to spring," " to leap or jump up," " burst out," O. Eng., springau, a common Teut. word, cf. Ger. springer, possibly allied to Gr. QnrFpxecOac, to move rapidly)

being the best time for propagation. The old stems laid flat in a propagating

frame

FRAME

will push

young

shoots, which may be taken off with a heel when 2 or 3 in. long, and planted in sandy peat in 3-in. pots; the tops can also be taken off and struck. The established plants do best in fibry peat made porous by sand. In summer they should have a day temperature of 750, and in_ winter one of 65. Shift as required, using coarser soil as the pots become larger. By the end of the summer the small cuttings will have made niceplants, and in the

spring

SPRING (from " to spring," " to leap or jump up," " burst out," O. Eng., springau, a common Teut. word, cf. Ger. springer, possibly allied to Gr. QnrFpxecOac, to move rapidly)

following they can be kept growing by the use of manure water twice a

week

WEEK (from A.S. wicu, Germanic *wikon, probably=
change
- CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. «a urmu', to bend)
, turn)

. Those intended for the conservatory should be gradually inured to more air by mid-summer, but kept out of cold draughts. When the plants get too large they can be headed down and the tops used for cuttings.
A large number of the garden species of Dracaena are varieties of Cordyline terminalis. D. Goldieana is a grandly variegated species from west tropical Africa, and requires more heat.

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