WELWITSCHIA MIRABILIS:

Welwitschia Mirabilis
Friedrich Martin Joseph Welwitsch (1806 – 1872) was the distinguished figure destined to bring to the attention of the world one of the most extraordinary curiosities of all living organisms. This plant would arouse more interest and produce more surprises than any of the other 375’000 species known to man. It seems to bear kinship only with a prehistoric flora known today as fossil remains. Yet somehow it still survives…an anachronism…a relic of flora long past…a LIVING fossil!! No less unique is the phenomenon of the Welwitschia’s habitat. It occurs in isolated colonies confined to the Namib Desert, generally within a narrow 100 km-wide coastal belt and nowhere else in the world!
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