A Plant That ‘Cannot Die’ Reveals Its Genetic Secrets

Events in the genome of Welwitschia have given it the ability to survive in an unforgiving desert for thousands of years.

The longest-lived leaves in the plant kingdom can be found only in the harsh, hyperarid desert that crosses the boundary between southern Angola and northern Namibia. A desert is not, of course, the most hospitable place for living things to grow anything, let alone leafy greens, but the Namib Desert — the world’s oldest with parts receiving less than two inches of precipitation a year — is where Welwitschia calls home. In Afrikaans, the plant is named “tweeblaarkanniedood,” which means “two leaves that cannot die.” The naming is apt: Welwitschia grows only two leaves — and continuously — in a lifetime that can last millenniums.