I like the smell of dragons blood incense but I don't want to buy it if it's from an endangered species.
In before someone makes a joke about it being from real mythical dragons
I like the smell of dragons blood incense but I don't want to buy it if it's from an endangered species.
In before someone makes a joke about it being from real mythical dragons
Since the resin produced by Dracaena spp. and Calamus spp. is the same, it's quite convenient to just cultivate a huge amount of C. rotang, C. javensis, and C. caesius in the undergrowth of rubber plantations in southeast Asia. It grows like grass would, so it's very likely not even something that has to be intentionally cultivated on a lot of these farms.
The resin itself is mostly a byproduct of the rattan which is primarily grown for wickerwork. Basically just a bonus extra thing you can sell to crunchies while you're growing rattan as a secondary crop in between your rubber trees. I can't imagine anyone bothering to create a synthetic process to produce something that's otherwise just a free waste product of something massively cultivated for free.
Indonesia is in fact the #1 producer of both rattan and Dragon's Blood incense, and the #2 producer of natural rubber.
There is is! Excellent work, comrade.
You are some kind of plant genius