Dragons?

This website 144dragons.omeka.net is named after one of the HM 144 plague recipe’s most "sexy" ingredients: “a quantity of dragons.” As much as we may wish that this medicine really called for an undisclosed number of fire-breathing mythical creatures, the truth is much simpler. The recipe calls for “a quantity of dragons—the crop or the root." This reference could refer to a variety of possible plant species from the Croton, Dracaena, Daemonorops, Calamus rotang or Pterocarpus genera.

Since Roman times, the sap of some of these plants has been used as bright red pigment, but the ancient Romans, Greeks, and other cultures also believed that the leaves and roots of the plant itself had medical properties. Such uses for the plant persisted through medieval medicine, alchemy, modern folk healing, and even into modern day Neopaganism. To see "dragons" in action, click on The Medicine Now.