A small rock in the Atlantic

November Rainbow Gathering

According to wikipedia, a rainbow gathering is "a temporary intentional community, typically held in an outdoor setting, espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media."

And we have one on a beach in Garafia about now. "The dates are from new moon of November to the new moon of December." I believe that means that it starts on Thursday 27th and ends on Wednesday December 24th.

And to get there, take the bus from Los Llanos towards Garafía and "say to the bus driver you want to go to El Callejoncito, he will left you in the beggining of the road to go down to the beach, where the family will be in peaceful & beautiful Natural paradise… waiting for you."

Labels: counterculture, Garafia, La Palma, rainbow gathering

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Dragon trees

The latin name is Dracaena draco Although they grow anything up to 12 metres tall, botanically, dragon trees aren't trees. They don't have annual rings, for one thing. Actually, they're classified in the same order (Asparagales) as garlic and asparagus, although they look nothing like each other. In fact, dragon trees look mostly like broccoli on steroids.

They grow throughout the Canary Islands, and also in Cape Verde, the Azores, Maderia, and western Morocco.

Because they don't have annual rings, it's hard to tell their age. The trunk branches every time they flower, which isn't every year. So you can tell how often a trees has flowered, and make an educated guess at its age that way. The tree in the photo has flowered just twice. The oldest ones seem to be about 650 years old.

The resin is reddish. In ancient Roman times, people used to dry it and sell it to alchemists as dragon blood. It must have fetched a packet.

The Canary Islands used to have a large, flightless bird, something like a Dodo. This bird ate dragon tree fruits, so the seeds evolved to have a hard protective covering to survive the bird's digestive tract. Now that the bird is extinct, this covering makes it had for the seed to germinate. The north of La Palma is one of the few places where the trees are reproducing naturally. In other places they put the seeds in an acid bath for a few hours (much like the inside of a bird) to remove the hard coating before planting the seed.

This one lives in Las Tricias, Garafía.

Labels: Canaries, Canary Island flora, Canary islands, Dracaena draco, dragon tree, Garafia, La Palma, Plants