Wel·witsch·i·a n. Bot. An African plant (Welwitschia mirabilis) belonging to the order Gnetaceae. 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.
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welwitschia
n : 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 [syn: Welwitschia
mirabilis]