Travelling through one of Africa’s most scenic desert destinations on a once in a lifetime Namibia tour, guests can see all kinds of interesting places, animals and those things that make this nation so uniquely Namibian.

Welwitschia Mirabilis is displayed proudly on the National Coat Of Arms of Namibia.  If you are expecting a beautiful flower you will be sorely disappointed.  This is not a plant you would deliberately plant in your garden.  It is not pretty to start with and the older it gets and the more damage it has to its leaves, and so the more untidy it looks.

A Little History and Places you’ll Find it

Although Welwitschia Mirabilis has been around for thousands of years and some of the plants that can be seen today are estimated to be up to 1500 years old!

It got its reference name in 1859 when Friedrich Welwitschia, an Autrian botanist ‘discovered’ it.  This unusual plant is only found in the Namib Desert in Namibia and also in Southern Angola.  In the Namib Desert, the Welwitschia can be found in an area of about 1200 km, from Southern Angola to the mouth of the Kuiseb River.

It densely populates an area about 60 km from the coastline.  The plant itself has a dense network of roots that grow close to the surface ground in a 30 meter radius and then also a taproot that goes about 3 meters down to reach any underground water.  Since rain is a rarity in this area, the plant depends on its network of fine roots close to the surface of the ground to get water from dew or fog.  It was once assumed that the plant got water through its leaves, but this is not true.  The leaves are however arranged in a way so that they can store water. 

The people of Angola call it “N’tumbo” which means “Stump” and the Herero people call it “Onyanga” which refers to “desert onion”.   The Afrikaaner people cleverly named it “Twee-Blaar-Kanniedood” which means “Two-Leaf-Can’t-Die”, which basically describes this plant perfectly; when you first look at it,  you will think there are many leaves, but in actual fact, it has only two leaves. 

The plant is extremely durable and over hundreds of years of being in the harsh desert, the two leaves grow continuously.  As the plant grows and expands over the years, the two leaves understandly get damaged and torn. This ends up making the plant appear to have numerous leaves.  It is not only the harsh desert climate that takes its toll on the leaves, but there are also several antelope, rhinos and zebra that love to eat the leaves of the Welwitschia Mirabilis.  

The plant eventually looks like it has been totally destroyed, but instead of dying, it is thriving!   

Close to Swakopmund, and marked on every tourist map under “ interesting things to see”, the location of one of these plants is marked. This specimen is estimated to between 1000 and 1500 years old although it’s actual age is unknown.  The way to determine the age of these plants is to count the annual rings on its stem.  As a visitor to the area of Swakopmund, a drive along the aptly named “Welwitschia Drive” will give you 50 km of the area covered with about 6000 of these plants.  At the end of this drive, you will find the oldest Welwitschia plant which is fenced in.  Many of these amazing plants are surrounded by a circle of stones, and tourists are urged to stay behind the stones as the stones have been placed there to protect the plant’s roots.

See Nambia’s famous plant along with all kinds of incredible attractions when you book your Namibia tour with Cross Over Africa.