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Portrait of Welwitschia

Nature · Ferns, grasses & other plants

Welwitschia

Perennial gymnosperm · often 1,000+ years old

Welwitschia mirabilis — Welwitschiaceae (Gnetophyta)

Welwitschia is a living fossil of the Namib Desert, the sole species of its genus, family and order. It grows only two leaves in its entire life, and they never stop growing: they emerge from a basal growth zone, sprawl for metres across the gravel and are shredded by the wind into what looks like a heap of wreckage. Plants of a thousand years and more are common, and it survives on fog rolling in from the Atlantic. Darwin called it the platypus of the plant kingdom.

How to spot them

  • ▸A low woody crown like a split stump, with two enormous strap leaves sprawling and fraying across bare gravel
  • ▸Leaves shredded lengthwise into many ribbons, giving the look of a pile of wreckage rather than a plant
  • ▸Small salmon-pink or reddish cones clustered on short branched stalks in the crown
  • ▸Gravel plains and dry watercourses of the coastal Namib, within reach of the sea fog
  • ▸No trunk, no branches, no new leaves ever — the same two leaves for a millennium

How to know it

It produces only two leaves in its whole life, which grow continuously from the base and are shredded by the wind

Welwitschia.

The sole living species of its genus, family and order, a relict of the Gnetophyta

Welwitschia mirabilis.

Endemic to the gravel plains of the Namib Desert, it draws much of its water from Atlantic fog

Welwitschia.

Joseph Hooker named it in 1862 for the Austrian botanist who had found it in Angola in 1859

Welwitschia mirabilis, after Friedrich Welwitsch.

Darwin called it the platypus of the plant kingdom, and it appears on the coat of arms of Namibia

Welwitschia.

It bears cones rather than flowers, and male and female cones are on separate plants

Welwitschia — it is a gymnosperm, not a flowering plant.

Quick-fire facts

  • •One species only — Welwitschia mirabilis — and it is the only member of its family Welwitschiaceae and of its order
  • •Endemic to the Namib Desert of Namibia and southern Angola
  • •Produces exactly two leaves, which grow continuously from a basal meristem; Kew records them reaching 8 to 14 m in length
  • •Specimens are commonly over 1,000 years old and some are estimated at 2,000
  • •A gymnosperm of the division Gnetophyta, related to Ephedra and Gnetum, not to any flowering plant
  • •Dioecious, with male and female cones on separate plants; pollination is by insects
  • •Named by Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1862 after Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch, who found it in Angola in 1859
  • •Kew notes it is said to survive as long as five years without a drop of rain, taking moisture from coastal fog
  • •It appears on Namibia's coat of arms, and collecting it is strictly controlled

Drill it — 7 cards

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Sources