Celebrating Friedrich Welwitsch and the Surreal-Looking Tree: Welwitschia mirabilis

February 5, 1806

Today is the birthday of the Austrian botanist and explorer Friedrich Welwitsch.

Friedrich found a second home in Portugal, where he served as the Botanic Gardens director in Lisbon.

Friedrich had some fantastic experiences during his lifetime, but the pinnacle was the day he discovered his namesake: the Welwitschia mirabilis.

The mirabilis refers to its unusual form.

Friedrich collected plants in Africa on assignment from Portugal for seven years.

In 1860, Friedrich discovered a strange-looking plant that is actually a tree - a conifer and a gymnosperm in botanical classification. Africans simply called it "Mr. Big."

When Friedrich discovered this unique plant, which can live for more than 1500 years and bears only two leaves in its entire lifecycle, he was so astonished that he,

"could do nothing but kneel down and gaze at it, half in fear lest a touch should prove it a figment of the imagination."

Imagine a two-tentacled octopus with very long arms and a red floral bouquet for a head, and you have the Welwitschia mirabilis.

Welwitschia's two leaves grow continuously throughout the life of a plant. The pair of leaves are broad, leathery, and belt-shaped.

Incredibly, some specimens tested with carbon 14 are over 2000 years old.

The Welwitschia is endemic to Namibian deserts and is also on the country's coat of arms.

Today, if you search online, there is a spectacular photo of Friedrich seated behind a large welwitschia mirabilis. He's wearing a pith helmet, and the plant's leaves are many times longer than Friedrich's arms and legs, which the plant mostly obscures.

In 1862, Joseph Dalton Hooker described the plant in The Gardener's Chronicle as,

the ugliest yet [most] botanically magnificent plant in the world.