Welwitschia

Wel`witsch´i`a

n.

1.

(Bot.) An African plant (Welwitschia mirabilis) belonging to the order Gnetaceæ. It consists of a short, woody, topshaped stem, and never more than two leaves, which are the cotyledons enormously developed, and at length split into diverging segments.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

welwitschia - curious plant of arid regions of southwestern Africa having a yard-high and yard-wide trunk like a turnip with a deep taproot and two large persistent woody straplike leaves growing from the base; living relic of a flora long disappeared; some may be 700-5000 years old Welwitschia mirabilis gymnosperm - plants of the class Gymnospermae having seeds not enclosed in an ovary genus Welwitchia, genus Welwitschia - type and sole genus of Welwitschiaceae