Torn to ribbons in the desert: botanists puzzle over one of earth's oddest plants

Science News, Oct 27, 2001 by Susan Millus

However, a logistical fluke brought von Willert back to the Namib last January, a month during which he'd never before done gas-exchange measurements on the plants. This time, he detected C[O.sub.2] uptake during the night. The plants took up some 4 percent of their total carbon requirements through CAM, he told the Third World Conference on CAM in Cairns, Australia last August. He also noted that the shift to CAM mode carne at a time of year when the plants needed extra carbon because they were pumping resources into their seeds.

Von Willert sounds remarkably good-natured about reversing a contention he's made for decades. "Many times, I have visited Welwitschia and posed a question, and she gave me different answers, always pulling my leg," he says.

Jernstedt chuckles at the question of what dramas she endured during her quest in the desert for the elusive Welwitschia. As much fun as it would be to tell of hardships and hairbreadth escapes, she confesses, "It was so easy."

In 2000, she spent a month at the University of Botswana teaching and examining local plants. At the end of her stay, she and a biologist friend with a brand-new Global Positioning System receiver headed out with von Willert's instructions. They rented a Toyota Corolla and, in a single day, drove 1,000 km on the Trans-Kalahari highway. They stopped at each of the three gas stations along the way.

"You have to make it one day," Jernstedt says. At nightfall, the danger rises of hitting some of the abundant animals--kudos, warthogs, sheep, goats--bounding across the road or just basking in its warmth. Even daytime driving required intense vigilance. "One person was driving and the other one sat peering out, eyes out on stalks, watching for animals," Jernstedt remembers.

They made it to Windhoek just after dark, but without a complete sense of relief. "If you've driven across the Kalahari once, that's all you need. But we were going to have to get that rental car back," Jernstedt says.

Colleagues had put them in touch with a driver and tracker who often took tourists to find desert rhinos and elephants.

The driver spotted the first Welwitschia plant. "[The other biologist] took a picture of me with it, and I took a picture of her and the Welwitschia, and then the guide took a picture of both of us with it. It was a thrill," Jernstedt says.

As the party set out at sunrise in the guide's van, a desert elephant appeared amidst some boulders. The tracker assured the visitors that just a little effort would probably give them excellent views of more elephants nearby. "We had a hard time getting the guide back focused on Welwitschias," Jernstedt says. "He must have thought we were nuts."

They still had some 20 kilometers to go to reach rocky Brandberg Massif, where von Willert had identified the extraleafy plants. The trip through such exotic territory did not go quickly. They every kilometer or so to look at something intriguing, Jernstedt says.

As they neared the massif, cliffs and rocks often stymied their approach to von Willert's coordinates and forced them to detour. When the van could proceed no farther, the visitors walked, finding some Welwitschias but not an anomalous one. They became uncertain that they could recognize the extra leaves among the tangles. "Everyone was asking, `Is this one? Is this one?'" she recalls.