A day in the Namib Desert

[chrisinhouston]

This the famous Welwitschiaceae Mirabella which are dioecious or of only one sex for each plant. That makes fertilization harder since an insect must carry the pollen to a completely different plant. An interesting feature of this plant is that most of the trunk is below ground as are it's roots. Only about 12 inches is above with 2 leaves that split over time and eventually flowers and seed pods. There plants here are probably about 1000 years old, they can live up to 1500 years!

Third shot is from the riverbed we drove through, it rained a bit back in March.