Dragon's Blood Trees

Dragon's Blood Trees is an original illustration set in Socotra Highlands, Yemen. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is hot desert — evaporation far outruns rainfall.

A thick branching trunk supports a dense inverted-umbrella crown, with several smaller umbrella crowns scattered across a pale fractured limestone plateau. The vegetation is sparse and low between them, and the morning light is crisp.

Why is the crown shaped like an upturned umbrella?

The crown is shaped like an upturned umbrella because it harvests fog: moisture condenses on the packed foliage and drips straight down onto the tree's own root zone, shading it at the same time. A tree that depends on fog rather than rain, growing on bare limestone, belongs to an isolated highland where the sea supplies the water the sky does not.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.