Recently, the announcement of a report by the Pentagon and the American secret services on unidentified flying objects once again renewed interest in extraterrestrials.
When the report came out on June 25th, however, the reading was rather anti-climactic: thin nine pages about the fact that one or the other object could not be identified - and of course not a word about aliens.
Ulf von Rauchhaupt
Responsible for the “Science” section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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Now, anyone who seriously thinks about the inhabitants of other planets must by no means imagine what they look like. The American astronomer Carl Sagen once imposed this ban on images and, as an advisor to Stanley Kubricks for his science fiction production "2001: A Space Odyssey", prevented him from allowing aliens to appear. But we cannot avoid getting an idea, at least of the vegetation of its original planet: It could look like the
Welwitschia mirabilis
.
Because this plant from the class of
Coniferopsida
, which is
native to the coastal deserts of South West Africa,
is certainly the most alien green stuff on our own planet. One of the greatest specimens and attraction of the Namib-Naukluft National Park actually looks like a tentacle monster. In the process, only two ribbon-shaped leaves grow out of a bizarre wooden body - and that continues as long as the plant lives. In this case, that is already at least 1500 years, and so its leaf bands are looping, often frayed and intertwined, over the desert floor. The leaf material begins to wither from a distance of about one meter from the wood. Even relatively young individuals therefore always look a bit neglected, which is what the
Welwitschia
has entered the title of the ugliest of all plants, which we prefer to reserve for potted succulents under tulle curtains.
The ugliest plant in the world?
Even more peculiar than the external appearance of
W. mirabilis
is its position in the vegetable kingdom. It is the only species of the genus
Welwitschia
, this the only genus of the family
Welwitschiaceae
and this in some classifications the only family of the order
Welwischiales
. Taxonomy is sometimes a
matter of
discretion, and so other botanists group the
Welwischiaceae
with two other families to form the order
Gnetales
. In 2011, genetic studies identified members of the
Gnetaceae
family
as the closest living relatives of the desert plant, which only needs a little morning mist to provide moisture. In contrast, the
Gnetaceae a
good thirty species of tropical trees and creepers.
The fact that these actually have more
to do
with
Welwitschia
and both with our pines, spruces and firs demonstrates once again that consideration is far from being empirical.
In view of the special way of life of the
Welwitschia
in the coastal deserts of Namibia and southern Angola as well as their slow growth, one might think that the plant is hardly cultivable and threatened with extinction.
Fortunately, neither is the case.
In well-stocked tropical houses like the Frankfurt Palmengarten you can marvel at them without a trip to Africa, and in the wild there are the
Welwitschias
still in such large numbers that the plant does not have to be on the red list. Fungal infestation and browsing by thirsty wild animals such as zebras, however, are a growing problem, as are people without manners. According to the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, the Welwitschias in Angola are doing best. There are so many mines from the civil war in the sand that the plants remain undisturbed.