Welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis) Part 1

• LUISE HOFFMANN THE Welwitschia is conspicuous because often it is almost the only plant visible in its otherwise quite barren area of distribution and because of its peculiar growth form marked by two long leathery leaves. Emerging directly from a short, squat trunk and usually ripped into many strips by the wind, they lie curled around the plant in an untidy heap resulting in it being referred to as “octopus of the desert”.

Names: „Tumboa“ from the Angolan name “n’tumbo” meaning ‚blunt’, due to the blunt top of the trunk. The Otjiherero name “onyanga yokuware” means ‘onion of the coastal lands’.

The botanical name honours the Austrian botanist and physician Friedrich Welwitsch who discovered it in 1859 along the southern coast of Angola causing great excitement among botanists at the time.

He immediately realised that he had found a very remarkable plant.

Research revealed that the Welwitschia forms a link between the geologically ancient conifers or plants that bear cones and whose leaves are needle-shaped, and the much younger angiosperms or flowering plants.

Conifers, also known as gymnosperms, are very common in the northern hemisphere, but do not occur naturally in Namibia.

They have needles instead of leaves and are evergreen. [Examples are the very high, pointed cypress trees on Windhoek central cemetery along Hosea Kutako Drive and similarly shaped but shorter trees separating the lanes of that drive south of the cemetery.]

The naked seeds of conifers develop in bracts on the outside of cones and are usually pollinated by the wind. The seeds of flowering plants develop in the ovary of a flower that is usually surrounded by colourful petals. Pollination is most often carried out by insects.

The Welwitschia bears cones like the conifers but its long, flat leaves have parallel nerves, a feature usually only found in certain highly developed angiosperms such as grasses and palm trees. The specific name “mirabilis” means ‘wonderful, astonishing, extraordinary’ and refers to these unusual features.

Almost at the same time that Welwitsch discovered the Welwitschia in Angola, the well-known explorer and artist Thomas Baines found a large Welwitschia near Haikamgab along the Swakopriver and painted it. Therefore his name is also mentioned in older descriptions of this plant.

Distribution: Welwitschias almost always grow in drainage lines or depressions in which water collects and seeps into the soil after erratic rain showers typical of the Namib.

They are found in about thirty patches in an area stretching from the Kuiseb River northwards into southern Angola up to the coastal town of Namibe. In fact in 1967 in southern Angola my husband saw large numbers of Welwitschias that were much bigger than those found in Namibia.

The largest Weltwitschias in Namibia occur in the Messum Crater.

The largest of these brunt down a number of years ago, probably having been struck by lightning. Welwitschias growing among grasses and shrubs in the Mopane savanna west of Khorixas, e.g. at the Petrified Forest, are much smaller and less visible.

Researchers believe that a hundred million years ago the Welwitschia population was more connected across this range than it is today.

The large Welwitschia near Swakopmund is a well-known tourist attraction. The top part of a dead Welwitschia trunk can be inspected in the Desert House in the Botanic Garden, 8 Orban Str, in Windhoek.