Photo: UHH/Jürgens Specimens of the Weltwitschia mirabilis can live over 1,000 years.
Photo: UHH/Jürgens Specimens of the Weltwitschia mirabilis can live over 1,000 years. A family of Welwitschia already inhabited Earth 112 million years ago. A research team in the Department of Biology at Universität Hamburg has now used short DNA sequences to discover that the only still-living species of Weltwitschia mirabilis has different subspecies. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. The Weltwitschia mirabilis looks bizarre: its stem is about one meter thick but no more than 50 cm high and it sports only 2 leaves that lie on the ground. These can grow up to 8 m long and they continue to grow throughout the plant's life. The plant can live more than 1,000 years.
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