The Dragon Tree of Parque Genoves
Santa Barbara
Approximate location.
Cadiz used to have two famous dragon trees, then a storm took the roof off the wrong one. The Drago del Tinte, growing in a former arts and crafts school elsewhere in the city, collapsed in April 2013, leaving this specimen in Parque Genoves as the last dragon tree of any age left standing in Cadiz. Estimates for how old it actually is vary widely. The city's own parks department calls it simply centenario, over a hundred, while local guides put it as high as two hundred, and no planting record settles the question either way. What is certain is the shape, a squat grey trunk that branches only once it flowers, which for Dracaena draco can take decades, giving this specimen the umbrella silhouette that takes most dragon trees a lifetime to earn. It grows near the park's north entrance, in a garden laid out in the 19th century specifically to show off exotic imports from across the old Spanish trading network. The species itself is native to the Canary Islands and Macaronesia, not Cadiz, its sap once bottled and sold across Europe as sangre de drago, dragon's blood, a dye and a wound treatment.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Parque Genoves, near the north entrance, 11002 Cadiz
You can recognise it by its squat grey trunk branching into an umbrella-shaped crown. It stands near the north entrance of Parque Genoves.
15 min walk from Cadiz train station, entrance on Avenida Doctor Gomez Ulla
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
