Welwitschia mirabilis is the only member of the Welwitschiaceae family.This succulent plant can live up to 1,500 years and is only found in a strip of land in the Namibia Desert comprising part of Namibia and Angola. It can survive on moisture from fog and dew.It consists of 2 leaves that grow continuously, a stem base and roots. It is thought to be a relic from the Jurassic Period and it has changed very little since then.

Welwitschia is one of three genera in the gymnosperm group of seed plants known as Gnetales, whose relationship to other plants has long been a subject of controversy among botanists and evolutionary biologists. Welwitschia includes just a single species, Welwitschia mirabilis, which is found in the Namib Desert of southwestern Africa (Namibia and Angola). The species is dioecious (i.e., individual plants are either male or female) and each adult plant consists of a giant taproot, a very short woody stem, and two permanent strap-shaped' leaves.

(McCoy et al. 2008)

Welwitschia mirabilis is a perennial plant that grows up to 2 metres high. It has a taproot that is elongate, usually branching near the apex.The woody, unbranched stem often splits into 2 lobes with an obconical shape - a conical shape but with a downwards-pointing apex. The apex growth of the stem stops at an early stage giving this peculiar and unique habit.It has just 2 opposite, entire, simple leaves with continuous basal growth. The leaves are up to 9m long and 2m wide, tearing lengthways into strips and wearing away at the tips. The texture is leathery and the pair of leaves is parallel-veined.It is a dioecious plant, so male and female cones are produced on separate plants:

• salmon-coloured male strobili are oblong, cone-like structures that are 1–4cm long, 5–7mm wide, and on a pedicel 2–5 mm long, with bracteoles1–3mm long
• female strobili are larger than male strobili - 3.5–8cm long, 2–3cm wide, with outer bracteoles 5mm long and inner bracteoles 8mm long

This plant's seeds are 3.5cm long and 3cm wide, white to creamish white with persistent papery winged bracteoles.

Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch was born in Austria in 1806. He studied medicine at Vienna University, but moved to Portugal in 1839, where he subsequently obtained a commission as a naturalist collector.After several years of exploring Portugal’s territory, and making extensive collections of the Portuguese flora and fauna, in 1852 he was appointed by the Portuguese King to explore the territory now known as Angola. And in 1853, he set sail towards St Paulo de Loanda.During his 7 years in Angola, he collected over 5,000 species of plants and 3,000 species of insects and animals, a large proportion of which were new to science.However, it was this remarkable plant that amazed Welwitsch who, at its discovery, knelt down and looked at it for a long time trying to figure out what he had in front of him.He named it as Tumboa, the Angolan name, but Sir Joseph Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens, later renamed it as Welwitschia in honour of the collector.

Welwitschia mirabilis flowers from mid-summer to autumn.Both the male and the female cones produce nectar which is 50% sugar to attract insects.The female cone has exposed stigmas that exude the nectar and the male cone possesses a modified stigma-like structure to produce it.Beetles are commonly thought to pollinate this plant, however considering the distance between individual plants it has also been suggested that hornets may be involved in its pollination.Female cones reach maturity nine months after fertilisation, during the spring months.Seed germination depends directly on rain - rain must fall for several days and in great quantity for the seeds to germinate.The arid conditions and other factors such as fungal infection and small animals eating the seeds can lead to seed loss.Once the plant becomes established, it can live up to 1,500 years.

Welwetschia mirabilis is a gymnosperm relict plant endemic to the Namib Desert. The species aerial architecture consists of a pair of very wide curled and contorted leaves atop an extremely abbreviated thick stem; these persistent structures are as thick as 1.4 millimetres in the adult specimens. Each of the leaves emerges from the base via an intercalary meristem; moreover, each leaf typically has tattered tips that exhibit extensive basipetal splitting. When a leaf is injured, that area produces a wound periderm.

Welwitschia mirabilis is restricted in occurrence to a portion of the Namib Desert in western Namibia and southwestern Angola.

Welwitschia mirabilis Hook. f.:
Angola (Africa & Madagascar)
Namibia (Africa & Madagascar)

Note: This information is based on publications available through Tropicos and may not represent the entire distribution. Tropicos does not categorize distributions as native or non-native.

Welwitschia mirabilis is limited in distribution to the desert or desert margin along the south-west coast of Africa. This land strip is about 1000 kilometres long and stretches from the Kuiseb River, just south of Walvis Bay in Namibia (latitude 20–24°S), to the Nicolau River in Angola (latitude 15–16°S).While some dispersed populations are found 200 kilometres inland, the majority of specimens are situated within 80 kilometres of the coast.

Ecology
Based on this plant’s distribution, it is thought that fog is an important source of water.Its habitat is extremely arid - annual rainfall is 10–100mm during the summer, but some years there is no rain at all.This plant grows on gravel or rocky ground and has a long taproot to take underground water. The fog contributes with about 50mm dew a year.This plant can stand extreme temperature fluctuations between 7°C at night up to 50°C during the day.

Leaves channel dew as water source: Welwitschia
 

The long leaves of desert Welwitschia capture water by collecting dew and channeling it into the ground where a large tap root can absorb it.

     
  "Further inland, one of the oddest of all plants manages to survive largely on dew. Welwitschia is related to the conifers and the cycads and consists of just two long strap-like leaves that sprout from a central swollen trunk only a few inches high. The leaves grow continuously from their base and become very long indeed. They would doubtless be even longer were it not for the desert winds which, blowing them back and forth, frays the ends into tatters. Even as it is, these leaves may be twenty yards long and lie curled in untidy heaps around the stunted trunk. They collect droplets of dew and channel them down runnels into the ground where the water is absorbed and stored in an immense conical tap root." (Attenborough 1995:267)
  Learn more about this functional adaptation.

The Welwitschia leaf epidermal cells manifest thick, cutinized outer periclinal walls with a primary cuticle of up to three micrometres in thickness; moreover, these walls contain crystalline sand as calcium oxalate. As with other warm desert plant taxa that exhibit Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM), Welwitschia leaves contains high concentrations of organic acids. In controlled experiments, direct daytime carbon dioxide uptake is exhibited, supporting the fact that Welwitschia is a C3 carbon fixation species, underscoring the species primitive origin from the late Palaeozoic era.
The anticlinal as well as inner periclinal cell walls are thickened, suggesting a desert adaptation that minimizes cuticular transpiration. The stomata are dense, exhibiting concentrations of around 150 stomates per square millimeter; moreover, the stomata are amphistomatic and sunken to about 30 micrometres. Furthermore, stomates lack opposite sclerenchymatous girders, and manifest longitudinal pores, similar to the stomatal architecture of desert palm taxa. Upper leaf surfaces have high solar reflectivity, which property inhibits overheating of these large area structures. These broad leaves, of course, cast a wide cool shadow, which creates a micro-habitat microclimate cooling for the plant and its arthropod associates.
Relative to the full gamut of desert succulents, the Welwitschia leaves store relatively modest amounts of water (approximately 45 to 65 percent). The leaves are isolateral and exhibit three or four palisade layers (of about 220 micrometres) of isodiametric parenchyma on each side of the central mesophyll. These palisade chlorenchyma are in longitudinal strips, since the tissue is divided by parallel clusters of unlignified hypodermal fibres. The mesophyll is the repository of the calcium oxalate (between primary and secondary cell walls).
Prominent longitudinal veins accompanied by smaller oblique anastomosing bundles characterize the leaf vasculature. The main veins contain primary fibres associated with the xylem and phloem: moreover, the older vascular bundles are enveloped with sclerified central mesophyllic parenchyma.

Welwitschia mirabilis is endemic to Namibia and southern Angola.This plant is relatively common within its habitat and is well protected in its native range.It is listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but is unlikely to be traded from the wild, apart from for its seeds.