Welwitschia mirabilis

Welwitschia mirabilis

These are amazing plants that can live for thousands of years (many individual plants are thought to actually be 1,000 or 2,000). They have two leaves that grow from the base in much the same fashion that play-dough would squirt up from one of those baking kits (a rudimentary analogy but it is what always comes to mind when I try to explain it to someone). They are around three feet in diameter and can be around two feet tall.

The plants don’t have a very successful “seeding” rate and this is from a fungal infection that is thought might be transmitted by the Welwitschia bug (Probergrothius sexpunctatis) – which reminds me a lot of milkweed bugs.

They are only found in Angola and Namibia. They are considered endangered simply because of the slow growth, limited habitat, and trouble in reproduction - but there are actually many individuals still existing. The plants in Angola are "generally considered to be better protected than the plants in Namibia, owing to the relatively high concentration of landmines in Angola, which keep collectors away." (It's wrong but that makes me laugh ...)

It is out of the question the most wonderful plant ever brought into this country, and one of the ugliest.
~ The keeper of the Royal Botanical Gardens, 1863