Drago de Pino Santo

The biggest dragon tree on Gran Canaria grows on a basalt cliff, about 15 metres above the floor of the Barranco Alonso, and you can only look at it from across the way. RTVC, the Canary Islands broadcaster, calls it the king of the island's dragos. The Cabildo's catalogue of singular trees gives it 16 metres of height (RTVC says 17), a trunk 4.9 metres round at chest height and a crown about 15 metres wide. Its age is counted from its 15 branchings, which puts it at roughly 240 to 250 years. RTVC, quoting the Cabildo, ranks it the fifth oldest tree on the island. The catalogue drops its usual dry tone for this one. It calls it the most spectacular wild-looking tree on Gran Canaria, framing the garden below like a scene from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, and it admits a worry that the rock holding it could one day give way. In 2020 a cochineal infestation turned about a quarter of the crown yellow. The Cabildo treated it in four rounds from a crane that June and brought the plague under control, and it still keeps watch. It is also counted among the 100 singular trees of Macaronesia. The tree stands on private land and the finca is not open. See it from the GC-151 road that climbs to Pino Santo, or from the floor of the barranco, about 25 minutes by car from Las Palmas.