The wild subpopulations of the dragon tree have been in decline for a long time. The species is present in five of the seven islands in the Canaries and the total population is reduced to a few hundred trees.
In Madeira and Porto Santo, it was once an important component of the vegetation in more arid areas but is reduced today to two individuals in the wild.
A survey in 1996 revealed new subpopulations in North Africa, in the Anezi region of the Anti-Atlas Mts. in Morocco.
Thousands of individuals exist on steep quartzite cliffs in inaccessible gorges.
These subpopulations are likely to represent a distinct variant of the species. Its closest relative is the dragon tree endemic to Socotra.