‘Many well-witschias for the day’ – Stellenbosch University’s Botanical Garden celebrates a special centenarian birthday of one of the oldest and most fascinating plants on earth!
Stellenbosch, South Africa (23 March 2026) – The Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden’s female Welwitschia has just turned 100 years old. Planted in 1926 by the garden’s first curator, Dr Hans Herre, she is the oldest Welwitschia mirabilis in cultivation anywhere in the world!
The plant has officially been named Mirabel, a nod to the latter part of her scientific name, which translates from Latin to ‘marvellous’ or ‘wonderful.’ She upholds a reputation of being one of the oldest and most fascinating plants in existence.
The Welwitschia mirabilis is one of the strangest and most singular plants on Earth. It has no close living relatives. It belongs to its own genus, its own family, and sits in a botanical category essentially all by itself. Scientists describe it as a ‘living fossil’ because it has existed since the Cretaceous period, over 100 million years ago!
To put that into perspective, the Welwitschia was around when the T. rex, Triceratops and Velociraptor roamed…
The species was only formally recorded by Western science in 1859, when Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch came across one in the Namib Desert. According to the story, he was so overcome by the sight of it he could ‘only kneel on the hot earth and stare, not believing his eyes.’
As per the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, the average wild Welwitschia is carbon-dated at between 500 and 600 years old, and the oldest on record is estimated at around 1500 years. They can live for over 2000 years in the wild. Mirabel, at 100, is essentially still a toddler.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Welwitschia is that it bears the same two leaves for its entire lifespan.
It’s the only plant on earth that does so, growing continuously outward from a wide, woody trunk that sits low to the ground. The Welwitschia’s leaves are officially the longest-lived leaves on Earth, and a single plant, over a thousand years, can produce up to 150 metres of leaf material!
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Welwitschias are what botanists call ‘dioecious’, which means that male and female plants are completely separate. So Mirabel, our lady of the hour, is female. You can tell by her cones, which are larger than the males’ and produce sweet, nectar-like droplets on a little stalk that extends down into each scale. Each cone holds around 100 winged seeds that disperse into the desert by the wind.
There are a few things scientists once got wrong about these wonders, too. For years, it was believed they relied on deep underground water or fog to survive. But research has shown they mainly depend on rainwater, using a network of fine roots close to the surface rather than a deep taproot.
Another myth is that they’re pollinated by wind. Welwitschias actually rely on insects like wasps and flies. Male plants produce pollen and sweet droplets to attract these pollinators, while female plants like Mirabel grow larger cones that produce seeds. Each cone can hold around 100 winged seeds, which are eventually dispersed by the wind.
Right now, both the male and female plants at the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden are in cone, putting on a surprisingly colourful and intricate display that visitors can still catch for a few more weeks. Well worth a visit if you love botanical wonders!
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