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live. This is Plant Debty Podcast. I'm Matthew and I'm Stephen. I'm
going to start by saying we chose a strange one today, and not slightly
strange, but like we really went for it. We sure did. It
wins the award for all at sleeves on any Plants and has been described as
unlike any known plant on Earth. When the keeper of the Q Royal Botanical
Gardens someone in eighteen sixty three, he said, it is out of the
question, the most wonderful plant ever brought to this country and one of the
ugliest. Yes, I can see that. So we're going to cover care
info for the few of you who may have one or actually want one.
But to me, this episode is more about cultivating unusual house plants, using
this plant as an example, like how we experience that and why we'd even
want to at least my answers to those questions. So if you're into less
common house plants or not, maybe I'll enjoy a little visit to that world
or mindset or hearing my attempts to explain it. And shocker, Matthew comes
at this from a different angle. Yeah, to me, this isn't even
an uncommon house plant. It is a true evolutionary and botanical marvel that I
am fascinated by. But honestly, I've never even considered growing it, and
I probably won't even after we talk about it, which is often a great
catalyst for me to expand further into a genus or family beyond what I've already
grown in preparation for an episode. So today Stephen and I are really swapping
hats. I know that we say that sometimes, but I can't think of
the last time that we discussed a plant that I have literally never even touched.
Yeah, and I think I've at least touched most of the ones I
don't grow that we've covered. Yeah, so that's an interesting point. In
the wild, this plant looks like a massive pile of drying out seaweed,
while in cultivation it might look more like a really sad amaryllis. Yeah,
okay, you're looking at the wrong ones. Also, you're calling an amaryllis
logical looking. That's a bold way to start this episode. Anyway, I'm
going to put together a slideshow of the cute ones for you after. Oh
perfect. I know I'm being a little harsh, but I'm curious to see
what I can get out of Stephen about his interest in cultivating a plant like
this. Is it the pure novelty of just what it is, rather than
what you might expect to achieve from it. I'm not a stranger to that
plant experience, it's myself, but to my relatively naive outsider perspective today,
I really don't understand the appeal of growing one of these if it won't ever
reach that wild and indescribably dead kelp look, and Seattle certainly doesn't seem like
a place where we could ever hope to achieve that, at least as a
house plant. I'll do my best. Cool, Okay, So we've talked
about my skepticism of commercial grow lights and how I've come around now that I've
seen about my super sleek and handsome aspect pendant light can do for my plants.
But what about you, Stephen, How do you like your Soulfex Solutions
plant light now that you've had it for a few weeks. Well, I'll
admit that I wondered about their power at first two, but I went ahead
and tried one of my largest succulent shrubs, a Kleinia narrow folia if you're
curious under my soul Tech aspect light, and it's thriving. So this awesome
plant, previously out of the way under DIY grow lights, is finally in
a place under my sleek Soultech light in my living space where I can better
enjoy it. Soulfect plant lights but enough warm white light that it's surprisingly easy
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Okay, what is it? Why is it interesting? Gosh? Where
do we begin? Okay, well, give me your sales pitch, But
I think that I want to give the general description of the plant from my
position as an outsider to growing it, who has been aware of this plant
for a long time and then researched it pretty in depth for this episode.
Okay, bearing in my you already called it dead kelp, But all right,
I'll allow that. All right. What if I told you you could
have a plant that a dinosaur also gazed upon, or you know, a
descendant more or less like based on the fossil record inserts stunned speechlessness. Good.
What if I told you this smallish house plant could live for thousands of
years and it only has two constantly growing leaves if you're doing it right,
and it's dioecious, so you might get a male or female and you'll be
surprised. We promise we're not making this out. I like that escalation.
Good. Okay. Do you like plants that are kind of fragile but also
ridiculously rugged? I do? Okay, So why does this sound like a
tinder profile all of a sudden, prefers deserts over mountains, not big on
drinking, will definitely out there view. I'd sweat bread. Also, I'll
caution but also advertise this plant has not earned the Royal Botanical Society a Ward
of Guard merit that we're so fond of drat. Yeah. As we get
into this, I think you'll get a sense of why it's probably not in
the running. But to me, that too can be exciting sometimes. Okay,
okay, So Matthew, how is this all sitting so far? I
mean you hit the key highlights for sure. Here's what I would like to
add and also elaborate on. Willwichi A mirabilis is the only species in its
genus, which is the only genus in the wiwichi Aca family. So we
love a monotypic plant, and this one really takes that to another level.
It's a native of the Namib Desert from Namibia to Angola, and it's actually
on the coat of arms of Namibia. As a matter of fact, they
didn't know that. Very cool, yep. It is generally known as Willwichia,
but another common name is tree tumbo, and of course it has a
lot of local names that I cannot allow us to disgrace with our failure and
pronunciation. Sensible choice. Yeah, thank you so. According to one earth
dot Org in a documentary called Namib Surviving the Sand Sea, this species is
thought to date back to the Mesozoic period, where dinosaurs first appeared some two
hundred million years ago. I'm just gonna let that sit for a while,
right, So, current living plants are also comparatively ancient, and it's thought
that the oldest living specimens are between one thousand and three thousand years old,
making them among some of the oldest organisms on Earth. Sounds like you're agreeing
with me so far, Matthew. Yeah, like I said, you hit
the key highlights. But perhaps some of the most unusual traits about this plant
anatomically, also, like you said, is that it only produces two and
sometimes but rarely three, strap like leaves with parallel veins that are sort of
grayish green, two surprisingly rigid, never ending ribbons. Basically, they just
continuously grow for thousands of years and with time will split and fray into these
ribbony curls and then dry out as the centuries pass. But the original leaves
that sprout after the catalitin are the only leaves it will ever have. Right
again, the catal lieden being the very first little leaf a plant grows after
sea germinates. Anyway, Yeah, and oddly to me, the cattalleedens have
reticulate veining instead of parallel but that's just an aside. Okay. So imagine
being free of the pressures of waiting for those new leaves on your aeroids.
Aren't those leaf jumps in your nependees? Yeah, when you get stressed by
what might be going wrong when a plant gets browning tips, you won't have
to hear this plant is browning tips. Yeah, Okay, as you would
expect with only having two leaves for the whole tremendously long life of a plant
that takes place in such an inhospitable environment. Perhaps because of this, the
relatively quite young plants and cultivation look rather different from the massive ancient specimens in
the wild, which, if you google for pictures that may not be a
bad thing. The older plants are amazing, but you know they're kind of
serving a particular look. I'll say, yeah, dead kelp piles a dead
kelp. They have this woody, bilobed crown that with age takes on a
gnarled, tortured appearance, like a giant mound of twisted cork with lichen growing
on it. And it's surrounded by piles of these split and frayed leaves.
So while the plant itself is never much taller than four or five feet,
sometimes almost reaching six, it might have a spread of twenty six feet.
And like you said, plants are either male or female, and I'll talk
about that in the botanical section. But Stephen, this is the first gymnasperm
that we are deliberately discussing on the show. I'm so excited. Yeah,
to each his own, I suppose. Yeah, So what are the ideal
recommended growing conditions? And before you say anything, I really enjoy when you
take a wild slash informed stab in the dark. For the care of a
plant that you've never grown. So here are my guesses. Okay, because
it's natural habitat is the Namib dessert. They get virtually no rainfall, but
they have frequent fogs and a very deep tap root that accesses groundwater. This
ecosystem is very hot, and they live in an unprotected sunny environment. So
I would guess that they need an unexpectedly and ridiculously deep pot that you have
to keep them pretty hot with really intense lights. Grow them on the dry
side with low humidity. But there might be something really odd thrown in there
too, like use a substrate that doesn't have much capillary actions so that they
can sit in a little water sometimes but stay dry in the top three cores
of the pot. Or maybe you use a different substrate at the very bottom
to retain more moisture while the crown of the plant itself always stays dry.
Okay, these are all great guesses. I think your plant would do relatively
well. Oh cool, cool, Okay. So I am going to explain
the up to the minute current thinking as I understand it. Okay, And
yes, like that's vague, maybe you're thinking like WTF, But here's one
of the unusual plant moments that are exciting for me, Like there's guesswork and
you have to rely on the other experiences and skills you've had, and yeah,
like maybe that's exciting you rather than care guides that are all over the
internet. Yeah, if only. Okay, So the best that I know
now basically the most light that you can provide the grow in southern Arizona that
I got mine from said that they like just to touch off their highest light
there if that helps. It's super intense there, pretty relentless, So we
could not give them too much here and see, oh probably not. Okay,
Now, how flexible are these because I would think that maybe like a
south window wouldn't even be enough in our particular latitude. So is this like
a grow lights required plants? Yeah, so I would I have mine under
grow lights. I would put them undergrow lights. I do have a friend
here who's growing one in a window and it just apparently doesn't grow very quickly,
So maybe it's possible in a window though. Okay, so if you
give them too little, won't just like etiolating get sad, not that I
have heard. Okay, okay, okay, Next I would take pretty extreme
care when repotting. There is that tap root you mentioned. It's pretty delicate,
it could be damaged pretty easily. So most people seem to repot only
once after germination, maybe after the plant is a year or so old,
So there's a huge pot size jump to where it will live like forever ish
in that next spot, and probably deeper pots. Like you said, that
was a hard and fast rule before, but people seem to agree a little
less on that recently. As far as soil goes, I honestly don't quite
know, at least not to the level of specificity that I usually prefer.
I've been told that, like quote, standard cactus mix is fine, so
whatever works for your other plants. Possibly, I will know more when I
repot mine. I guess I'll take a look at what it's actually in and
then you know, I can see what my mix does. So TBD,
Okay, I hope I'm not just like prying for something that you've just told
me that you don't know, But like, can you get away with a
commercial bag mix or do you need more of the sort of standard recipe that
dedicated second one growers tend to use, Like what inspired your preferred recipe.
Yeah, so the nursery called, they set a standard mix that they sell,
and I would guess a little bit more organic material than the one that
we use. Okay, so when I RePOP mine, I'm probably going to
use our mix at a bit more organic material just because I word, it's
going to dry out and thoughts and prayers please, okay, tell me about
the watering then, so they're never let it quite dry out. This is
easier with a deep pot. Like we've said, it's not as hard as
it sounds, actually, because I've achieved this pretty much of the past eighteen
months or so. But treating this like a cactus or succulent, letting it
dry out completely, that seems like the number one reason people lose these again,
seems because there's not a ton of cultivation info out there. That is
so counterintuitive. Yeah, this was tough, and I think it has been
for people for a while with these. Oh so maybe this is a plant
for those like tall, narrow clay rose pots that we both like in appearance
spect impracticality. Yeah, so when I make my slideshow, you will see
that it's a very particular pot look that people feel brave enough to put these
in Yeah, all right, so what else? Okay, it responds well
to fertilizers, which I wouldn't have guessed really. Okay, I guess at
first that sounds weird, but then I remember that the Amazon gets a wild
amount of nutritious dust from the Sahara desert dumped on it every year, and
nat like gives them nutrients that are otherwise lacking, and it lets the Amazon
thrive. So I guess that makes sense. Are you just using a standard
MPKA ratio for succulents though, Yeah, just what I used for all my
other succulents, just deluded. Okay, Ye, so you've had this point
for a little while. Kind of walk me through what your process has been
for growing it. Okay. So, like I said, had it for
eighteen months when I first got it. I was following the best or actions
I knew at that time. Yeah, and it was about a year old
at that point. Yeah, and you know, like that's how this goes
with quote weird plants sometimes, and I get a weird excitement for this already.
Okay, Like I was like, okay, let's try to piece together
what to do. Yeah, a weird plant with almost no in depth or
highly vetted care instructions really brings a special thrill to you like nothing else kind
of Okay, So I got mine home. It was a carry on item
in my backpack on the plane. Yes, I am that person. You
act surprised, please. Anyway, I was told by some friends who had
experienced to basically never repot it again the delicate roots. So I planned to
keep it in the weird grow tube pot and wait for someone else to make
a video or of something that I could look at and follow, like for
instructions on what to do when it inevitably outgrows that pot. Yeah, and
because the pot is pretty rough looking, I can show a picture. This
is one that I really wanted to move out quickly so I could joy it.
Yeah. So another weird houseplant strategy. When I can't stomach the risk
of wild guesses, I do this. I just wait for a video.
Okay, good call. Yeah, yeah, I may within reason. So
I was told that they didn't like to dry out, so I put the
nursery pot in a cash pot like one without drainage holes, so a bit
of water could collect in the bottom of the pot, almost like an underground
water source, kind of like in the wild. Yeah, okay, So
yeah, there was usually a bit of water in that cash pot. And
I mean, you know, this is a counterintuitive you know, quote succulents
and arid plant experience, right, So I kind of like the twists and
turns and the counterintuitiveness here. Yeah. I like, if you just look
at this plant and know where it comes from, like if you see a
plant in a photo of the desert, you would not yeah, keep it
let alone, prefer exactly, all right. So then I put it under
a strong row lights also near a window. Okay, so I try to
give it tons of light, but not like other worldly amounts exactly like surface
of venus. Yeah. So you know, it was like fifteen hours or
something. That's like the top end of the typical range for succulents and cacti
for me, but not like a you know, twenty four hour thing,
which I've heard of. So oh okay. So you've also mentioned to me
in the past kind of going through some challenging periods with this plant. Yeah,
what was going on and how did they go? So it went pretty
well for a while, but it never grew as quickly as the plants I
saw online, and I kept seeing those repotting horror stories, so I was
reluctant and still waiting for someone to share that video with confident directions on what
to do there. Yeah, and yeah, you know, another unusual house
plant excitement moment that I want to call out. Sometimes it feels like stressful.
Okay, yeah, Actually, as I'm saying this, it sounds way
more action packed than I should. Like that somehow, over the course of
a year, this is a good thing for me. I don't know,
but I feel like it's an accomplishment to find a stable cultivation routine, like
a holding pattern for a plant like this, you know, and then I
could keep the plant in that state while I learned more from the community,
and you know, learn more as they do the experimenting. Because I only
have one plant, I don't have good access to replacements. It sounds like
doing surgery while you're watching a YouTube video of how to perform the surgery.
How dare you? But yeah, yeah, So anyway, I felt like
I found a stability for Wellwichia and that felt like a little victory. Good
for you. Yeah, So then I moved my home. Conditions changed in
like five ways all at once. The leaves started to get red and crisp
up, and here's where the challenges started. I then misread that as too
much light, which makes zero sense in retrospect. But it looked red.
It looked kind of sun score, not like brown and dying to me.
So I moved it to lower lights. I went back to the groups in
the forearms to learn like the latest care info, which really changes so much,
kind of over six months, even like in my reading of it.
Then I realized it actually wasn't getting enough water for a while. And at
that point I thought it may be just dying slowly, you know, like
some succulents and cacti do. Yeah, But I fixed the watering issue.
I just threw it under highlight again, like no acclamation. I thought it
might be a goner anyway, And I'm like, well, you know,
this is just something to try. The red parts greened up again, and
so far it seems like it's forgiving me. I'm very happy about that.
Oh yeah, and this kind of sounds like a fairly typical weird plant moment
to have, like what is this doing? Who can I ask? Who
even knows? Yeah, And this is kind of another part. I like
that and the suspenseful moments. Maybe that's so stressful. Yeah, Like from
what I saw online, I thought my plant was a goner. And I
just saw these pictures of like people sharing a picture and people being like,
no, oh it's dead. I'm so sorry. So yeah, yeah,
but you know, sometimes you just try anyway because there is so little conventional
wisdom that hey, it could work, Like what do we actually know?
And this is something we do with any house platum and I would urge you
to do. And now I have some pictures, I have a story to
share with a little community online, and now I'll get to have like a
cool little chat with other enthusiasts from Italy and British, Columbia and Ohio and
you know who knows where else. And I kind of like that, oh
yeah, and this is going to be good for our show. Notes.
Okay, so what is going on with your plan right now? So it's
back under highlights. I'm watering it very consistently each Monday, and after a
call to the nursery that I bought it from, I feel like I have
a plan now for repotting it soon. I have called them before, those
long suffering people. Very Yeah, maybe I'll invite that friend who has one
over to come help. He actually wants to see what I'm going to do.
So you know, I am more nervous than usual for a repot,
for sure, but I do feel ready. I hope it gets bigger and
leaves will grow up more quickly and it can be in like what might be,
it's forever home. So like I say, leaves, but it's like
the leaves right right, So yeah, it's home as long as I'm alive,
and I'm planning to live until like two hundred. So cool. So
let's discuss the challenges. Are these considered challenging? So honestly, it's not
the very first thing that you read about these in my experience. In my
opinion, I think from what you've probably gathered so far, like this is
one of those plants that isn't so difficult as long as you follow a few
rules very strictly. So in that sense, it's kind of like carnivorous plants,
but it's easier than something where maybe you would need to keep high humidity
but lots of airflow but brighton direct light but never under sixty degrees or kind
of the things that I consider harder to consistently maintain. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I did see that. It's like these are easy, but
then there's a lot of they'll die really quickly. Yeah. Now, I
guess what is the quality of the general online care? You keep alluding to
the fact that it seems like it's changing constantly. How can you tell that
the resource that you're reading is helpful versus like one thing that someone noticed at
one point that they think is doing well. But I don't know, do
you get what I'm what I'm asking This seems weird. I think it's a
matter of getting a sense of the consensus opinion, right, So it's like
kind of just checking the forum every week maybe, or you know, with
something like Facebook, it will sort of pop up in your feet, I'll
see something. Yeah, that's a great question, though. I think this
goes for all plants like this, And we're going to go on to say
that they are on a lot of plants like this, but I mean,
like unusual ones. We just have so a few data points with this one
in particular, so it's hard to get that good consensus. Yeah, but
for plants like this, I would just try to find that active community first.
That could be online in person, your neighborhood Wellwitchie I group. Yeah,
that might be a bit more of a reach, but hey, maybe
in Namibia. You know, I visit this well Witchy a Facebook group.
I searched through posts when I have questions. I look for pictures specifically to
be like, my plant looks like this or not. I also ask for
updates on the threads. So a lot of this is sort of like what
you would do on a forum maybe, Okay, And I do find good
information. I get responses more often than not because I think, you know,
we're on a plant like this, the community is small and kind of
excited. Yeah, and I know some of us aren't into online forums or
Facebook groups. In that case, I would rely on the person or the
nursery you get the plant from before this episode, Like I said, I
talked on the phone to the nursery in Arizona where I got this one.
We were on the phone for a little while. They were super helpful.
I'm going to call them back probably if I need more help. So yeah,
I would imagine that the people who are selling these plants know what they're
doing. So it's different from like going to a house plant shop and it's
like I got this from a wholesaler. I don't have great in depth knowledge
on this particular species. This is probably a unique case. Yeah, and
this one, I think they're just not for sale those places. Yeah,
but yeah, if you're looking for a purely written online resource, I haven't
seen much that is specific enough for my liking. Most of the articles seem
to be about how unusual they are, you know, and or from people
growing them outdoors in southern California, which doesn't cover a lot of the kreinfo
a lot of other people we need to know. And Wow, Matthew,
maybe our show notes will be the holy grail, oh God for Wellwich your
Karen's just writ until the end of the episode and see if you agree.
Yeah, we're going to add that to our aspirational to do list to look
at when we want to feel overwhelmed. I love feeling overwhelmed me too,
So I feel like another way that you can feel overwhelmed about this plant is
just trying to find one in the first place, because you know, I've
never shopped for them, but in preparation for this episode and it did a
quick search on eBay and at see I also just did a Google search.
I was seeing seeds that were for sale but kind of for more than fifteen
dollars, a piece that looked like sometimes snificantly more than that, and then
young plants that still had the caudalitan's were for sale for about one hundred and
fifty dollars, and there were not a lot of purchasing options either. Yeah,
finding one is possibly the hardest part. These are often sold out,
they're often expensive, but honestly, I kind of expected lower prices and a
bit more availability since buying mine. Well, maybe I'm looking in the wrong
time of a year or two. Maybe the nursery I got mine from though,
stop shipping entirely, supposedly because they don't need to anymore, gotcha.
Yeah, but those prices are definitely higher. I think I paid forty dollars
from mine, with a little like damaged leaf discount. So again, I
guess another broad unusual plant tip. I would point you to the online communities
to ask where people got there, so maybe you can find a local place
or like a reputable online seller. And for this one, a lot of
people do grow from seed that doesn't seem unusually difficult, which is an upside.
I guess yeah, and I think that would be a uniquely rewarding experience.
Twenty five years old. Yeah, I did hear that the first eight
months or so in the plant's life after Germanates or the most challenging period because
you risk fungal infection pretty easily. So okay, good luck with that if
you go that route. Okay, all right, I feel like we've kind
of got a sense of this. But have you enjoyed growing your will?
Which yea, would you replace it if it died? I would. I
started to look around when I thought I had lost mine a couple of months
ago, and I found myself like reaching out to seed sellers online about other
things to get a sense of them and like kind of be on their radars.
So I think the urge is definitely there. Okay, Now, do
you have any final thoughts for a plant parent who's interested in giving this a
try themselves well as far as advice, Just plug into that local or online
community for these plants, any you know, or any unusual plant or any
plant. Frankly, I mean I kind of always say that one. Yeah,
I guess said why earlier, But that's going to be your source of
knowledge and plants. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, so,
Matthew, as a person who grows trees indoors, as someone who grows fruit
indoors, as someone who has dared to own a vanda orchid, you're no
stranger to outlandish moonshot plant experiences. Have you considered one of these ever?
You kind of you kind of answered that, but like why or you know,
why not? Yeah? I mean, like I said at the top,
this plant is in no way new to my plant knowledge, but I
have never considered it because as a young plant, it doesn't really have much
appeal to me visually. It does have a ton of fascinating background that might
make it an impulse by candidate, but I think I'm extraordinarily unlikely to just
randomly come across one for sale anywhere, and certainly not for a price where
it would just like end up in my shopping basket on a whim. Yeah.
No grocery stores that I'm aware of. Yeah. Yeah. And it's
also that insane wilde kelp in the middle of the sea of sand look that
is so particularly amazing to me. And I don't have twenty six square feet
of space and centuries of my life to achieve that, yeah, you know,
and really it's kind of like a lawn clippings and salad compost pile.
Look sometimes, you know, Okay, I mean you're not wrong. Yeah,
and you know, like the Vanda orc that you mentioned, some of
the you know, i'll call them novelty or on a whim plant experiences that
I've had have been fairly short lived, just to see if something was feasible,
and almost all those experiences just kind of turned out to be things that
I Am not going to try again without a greenhouse or living in a suitabowl,
you know, subtropical or tropical climate. Will Witchie in particular, just
seems too special to treat like that. Like Vanda's are crap. I don't
really like them. But well, Wichia is something different, and even in
the best case scenario, I can't ever expect to reach any kind of like
goal moment with it. You know, however unlikely that it might be other
plants that are like unlikely. Weird housemind candidates have had like a goal moment
for me that I felt like I could achieve, like blooming up Plumaria indoors,
which was a success or growing my own avocado as my balcony, which
was a failure. Okay, that makes sense. This also tells me how
I need to convince you, Okay, But you do understand the appeal of
the unusual plant experience that I'm kind of like trying to draw out of this
right for sure, Like different than like getting my bird of Paradise to flower.
I'm growing my edith kolia that is a monotypics to palead that it's just
so unique and interesting and I've had to kind of troubleshoot figure that out.
I totally go what you're talking about with like stabilizing a plant like life ops
have also been that for me, but I might just give up on those
soon. Yeah, as first of all, Whichia goes though, I love
that these are available in cultivation because it's just a marvelously fascinating species for interested
growers to try, and the living fossil element is a huge selling point,
honestly, But I'd rather grow like ginko. Okay. And even after hearing
all that, I still think you're gonna want one sometime, Okay, Like
maybe I just have to find a cool enough picture or maybe it's like that
goal like you said, you know, so my excitement is making it hard
to even hear anything contrary. Like I swear, you just have to see
this from the right angle, Okay, I I just know it. Yeah,
But I've already put together a Pinterest board with as many diverse interesting photos
of this plant showing off like all of its angles as I could for our
Pinterest page. One must be missing, yeah, probably. I mean I'm
not nearly as unfamiliar with wowichi as you sometimes are about the common plants that
I love. Yeah, I can't deny that. Yeah. And I did
read some University of Botanical Greenhouse writ apps saying that their plants can grow pretty
quickly in cultivation, and they were showing pictures of their own twelve year old
sea grown simons that looked honestly pretty impressive, and they were flowering. But
if I'm going to put in the level of light and also the duration of
time to get a plant to do something like that, I would rather have
plumarias blooming or fruit on a cherimoya tree, not fossils at all. But
okay, yeah, all right, any historical botanical cultural information about these let
me crack my knuckles. Yeah, is this going to be our longest botanical
section ever. I'm bracing myself. But in all seriousness, the sense I
get from what I've read myself, what I've seen in your outline is that
botanists have really struggled to understand and classify this plant over time. Yeah,
that's totally true. So let's just start with something that is known. The
genus is named for the Austrian botanist and doctor Frederick Wellwitch, who described the
plant into science in eighteen fifty nine and what is now Angola and then.
Part of the lore of his discovery of this plant is that he was so
overwhelmed upon seeing it that, according to the que Royal Botanical Gardens, he
could do nothing but kneel down and gaze at it half in fear lest a
touch should prove it a figment of the imagination. Totally get it, imagine
feeling that way. So I read that he tried to name the genus tumboa
after the local plant named Tambo, but another botanist was like, no,
we'll name it after you instead. So it's like they were this close to
breaking that Eurocentric mold in Tumbo is kind of a cooler name though. Yeah,
Si, Yeah, of what a shame and so ahead of his time.
But alas anyway, specimens from his expedition and then later one were eventually
sent to Q and the species named urabillis means wonderful or extraordinary that party can
get behind. Okay, if you didn't get it from my care story saga,
already, these defy a fair number of expectations. Yeah, and I
think one of the simplest ones is just its growth habit. Because it only
has two leaves. Forever, it used to be thought of as a neotenic
plant, and neotany is the term used to describe the slowing or delaying of
development, and we sometimes think of this as stalling growth in a juvenile four
Right, So an example of that is the axelaudl. Maybe anybody who plays
the game Minecraft or has a kid who does will know that one. Or
if you're an exotic pet person or a laboratory researcher doing studies on limb regeneration,
right right, I've heard that. Yeah. So it's a salamander found
in Mexico that becomes sexually mature without completing the metamorphosis into its adult form,
where it loses its skills and can live on land. In the plant world,
there are some examples of this too. I know there was a form
of helium phora, the carnivorous sun picture that you could buy that just stayed
in its kind of strange, weird juvenile form forever. Why would you want
that? Though? I don't think they were very popular anyway. Well,
Witchia used to be considered neotenic like these examples. Yeah, I believe so.
But well, Witchi is not actually a so called peter pan plant.
Instead, after it produces it's only true leaves, the apical maristem just dies.
This is the growth point of the plant where new growth would emerge from
if it was like you know, picture of Palinopsis or an aloe for instance.
But for Wowichia, the basal maristem is the only thing that keeps that
foliage coming out for all of perpetuity. Okay, And while we're on foliage,
botanists tend to expect small leaves in such harsh, dry habitats like this,
not like a thirteen foot leaf like Wowitchie can have. Yeah, it
totally defies as like generally observed phenomenon of desert plants, and instead the Wiwichie
has these mounds of coiling foliage that's spread out over time, and there's a
theory that this growth habit serves to shade the ground under the plant, which
reduces wind erosion, heat accumulation, and evaporation of water that collects on the
foliage as fogs roll in condense on the plant and then run off into the
sand. They also have a broad network of shallow lateral roots in addition to
their deep tap root in order to maximize their water uptake. So these adaptations
all serve to allow the plant to handle soil temperatures of sixty five celsius or
about one fifty fahreheit, which is very scorching. Yeah, it sounds awful.
Yeah, So I would assume then that this would be a cam plant
And to review for anyone who hasn't heard one of our cacti episodes recently,
this refers to plants that photosynthesize during the day but open their stomata at night
in order to reduce loss of moisture in arid climates generally. Yeah, and
pineapple is a camplant. CAM stands for the cressy lacean acid metabolism for those
interested, right, But it's been found that Wellwichia is only sort of a
camplant. Yeah, so some plants use like full cam all the time,
while others do it to varying degrees. And in Wellwichia it's very slight,
and it wasn't even really established as being true for a while because it's so
insignificant. But in foggy conditions, the stomata opened to take in some of
that moisture and then shut again as it becomes hot and dry again. I
have read that they actually taken most of their water through this process because there
is no rain, no measurable rain where they live. Yeah, and that's
an interesting one because I never read in the cultivation info to missed it,
right, Yeah, Like I wonder if that's just really you know, maybe
it stays too wet in homes or something, you know, you don't want
the humidity to be high. Yeah yeah, yeah, anyway, like this
sounds very high tech to me for such an ancient plant. No, yeah,
actually I agree. Also on top of that, what we'll call quote
little environments they form under these plants in the wild, that's not like a
part of this plant story that occurs to me as often as like the thousand
year old part of the dinosaur part. But there's a short documentary excerpt that
I found on YouTube that shows more and we can link to it in our
show notes. Yeah, that excerpt that we watched calls this an example of
niche construction, which is a fairly new concept describing when an organism builds an
environment in another environment. And whatwichia provides these little oases for insects and small
desert animals like snakes and lizards, or even nesting sites for birds, all
of which theoretically provides some amount of nutrient accumulation in the area around the wowichia
in order to help it grow or at least support its growth. That is
very cool, and it feels sort of familiar from carnivorous plants, where like
some attract insects to eat, some attract certain other insects by trapping the prey
that those other insects like to get the nutrients, and on and on.
Another point that I kind of liked was that they found related fossils in Brazil,
which is not in fact very close to southern Africa in case he just
needs some like geography help, So this suggests that they have existed since before
the Atlantic ocean, since you know, the continents weren't as separate as they
are now like two hundred million years at least, which I think we said
that's insane. So here's a hardcore Matthew sections. Do these have any close
relatives alive today? I'm so glad that you asked. With them being living
fossils, you might have guessed that there are not many. And Stephen,
just bear with me because I don't know what I was expecting these related plants
to be, but it wasn't what I found. And there is, of
course, sam disagreement among the scientific community. So there are a couple of
taxonomic classification systems that I've seen for wellwitch yea. One place is this plant
in its own family willwitchi aca and order willwitchiales. Okay, it's own order.
Like that sounds pretty isolated to me, Like often we talk about plants
in the same genus and even you know those plants will get their own episodes
sometimes. But you know, if you have to jump one higher to family,
then one higher agains yeah yeah, but then one higher again to order
before we can find some relationships that is yeah, yeah, on its own
and just to give some familiar contacts with plants. You might know. The
last time we talked about taxonomy at the level of order, I believe,
was with the marintasi a family where we find clay the m prayer plants,
because that family is in the zinjabrails order, where we also find the birds
of paradise, ginger, cardamom, bananas. So yeah, that's kind of
a diverse group in there. Okay, So yeah, speaking to what a
large tent that is. But well, Wichio was joined by two other orders
that made up the division Netaphyta, and each of these individual three orders were
only represented by a single living genus. Okay, so there are other full
blown orders just with single genera in them here too, Like this is sounding
like piles of last socks all of a sudden, Yeah kind of. But
I think that it is pretty cool to have well WITCHI would be so isolated
and there taxonomy. Yeah, I agree with that. Actually, you know,
like a special plant somehow. Yeah, but again we're not taxonomous.
I'm smelling confusion here though. Yeah. So, recent DNA analysis seems to
give evidence to shifting all three orders of this division into a single order than
ntails, which contains the family Nitasia with a single genus, and Eidraca,
also with a single genus. Okay, so Wellwitchia is sounding pretty lonely so
far. But as far as the closest living relatives or next of kin,
like, would we know them? Well, Wellwichia is the only member of
its entire classification, but there are more in these other genera. I was
completely unfamiliar with the Netum genus. However, there are about forty to fifty
species and they are pantropical trees, shrubs, vines. Their leafy have colorful
fruit, and I didn't recognize anything from here in my prior plant knowledge.
And that's all I have to say about them, besides the fact that they
are utterly unidentifiable as relatives of Wowichia, just based on appearance. Well yeah,
trees, shrubs, and vines that already doesn't sound very close to me.
Yeah, from like rainforests. Yeah yeah. And then in the other
one, the genus Ephedra, well that name made me think diet pills,
so yeah, I looked into that one, and the genus is also found
around the world and they are considered shrubs mostly or vines with a kind of
horsetail reedy sage brush appearance and photosynthetic stems with scale like leaves that fuse and
again very different from both netam and wowichia. But ephedra are indeed medicinal plants,
with their alkaloids ephedrin and pseudoephedrin having stimulant and decongestin properties, and they've
also been used as weight loss supplements that were banned in the US recently due
to serious safety risks. Aniphedra is also used in the production of methamphetamine.
Oh nice, Okay, but I'm thinking, well, Whichie would probably feel
weird at this family reunion? Yeah, just imagine their Thanksgiving dinner. But
we all have an antiphedra. So now we're gonna zoom a little bit further
out, and here's what we get to Stephen savored place the territory of I'm
trying to explain what I think I understand about various evolutionary theories that I read
about on Wikipedia, and then I tried to validate with supplementary resources because we
need some background information to get to my intended destination here. Okay, but
you know I love a standing in one's truth. Okay, So yes,
there's the trigger warning for any professional botanists or botany students. What do you
have for us, Matthew? So I'm going to make this very big picture
and try not to get mired down in detail. Okay, spoiler alerts.
These aren't flowering plants. They're actually what are called cone bearing plants, like
pine trees for example, and cone bearing reproduction evolved first, so another point
for wellwichia ancientness. Okay, sorry, continue. Yeah, so in terms
of plant reproduction, we basically have plants that reproduce with spores like ferns and
moss, and then came the seed bearing plants or spermatophytes, and spermatophytes are
then divided into the cone bearing gymnasperms, and then later we got the flowering
angiosperms and angiosperms the flowering plants make up like the vast majority of our house
plants. Yeah, Like almost everything that we've talked about on the show has
been that there have been some ferms, but yeah, they evolved all the
complex anatomical adaptations. They get the pollen to the ovule in order to fertilize
it to become a seed instead of an ovary or fruit body. While gymnasperms,
which Witchia is, have their ovules just available for pollen to access directly.
The word gymnasperm me is naked seed actually, And so the pollen bearing
male cones and the seed bearing female cones look distinctly different. Picture conifers outdoors
kind of this time of year on the tips of branches, you'll sometimes see
these like yellow pollen covered growths and little clusters. And then later in the
year there are pine cones. So that's that is a cone, the male
and female cones, and so these were Witchie relatives and I just used earlier
are gymnasperms. And you know, the other cone plants include conifers, like
Stephen said, so think cedar pine juniper, and then other familiar living fossils
like ginko and the psycats that include things like sygopalm and diune. And there
are several theories to how they all fit together evolutionarily. So remember the Netaphida
division that either has one or three orders and whichever you choose to accept.
Willwitchia is in there along with that diet pill plant. Yes, but we
may put a cricket sound in here. Okay, Well, the next closest
relatives of Netaphida could be the conifers together, or just the pines and more
distantly the other conifers. Another theory is that Netaphida's closest relatives could be just
the flowering angiosperms in general, or Willwitchie and its relatives could represent a proto
flowering plant. Okay, that's kind of a cool point for me when I
first heard it, like it's archaic in another cool way. But then when
I saw more about the various theories and the part about the DNA evidence not
really supporting that, I was a little less excited. Yeah. So see,
like I don't really get into taxonomy unless I do, and then I'll
have random opinions and emotions about it like this, which makes very little logical
sense. But I guess I just wanted it to be a proto flowering plant.
Okay. I mean, you can win whatever you want. And Wikipedia
has some diagrams on their page for Nettaphida that gave me a starting point at
least in my research. But it's chaos, and if you're interested, I
highly recommend that rabbit hole. Yeah, rabbit hole. I'm going to write
that down as an episode name. So today it seems to be most widely
accepted. The Wilwichia and its relatives are most closely related to the pines and
other conifers. It's a fascinating mass. Sometimes I get into these awful tangents
of taxonomy, but with Willwichia, the big picture that I'm taking away from
this is that there are various theories representing how we understand the early evolution of
different reproduct strategies of plants, and it makes the gymnasperms particularly curious to me.
Okay, and it wasn't awful. Thank you for that, oh well,
thank you okay. In the notes, I have one final point about
cones. Somehow I'd already said my thank yous. I thought, okay,
yes, they're male or female Matthew, Yeah, so WIWITCHI, like you
said at the top of the show, they're dioecious. They're either male or
female plants, which is fairly common in gymna sperms. Actually, the only
branching part of the Wilwichia are the stout structures that emerge from the center of
the plant, bearing either narrow, reddish orange male cones or thicker, fleshy,
greenish female cones. Tinged with orange or purple and both produce nectar.
Okay, and let me just call out if you need a plant that will
turn boiling sand into nectar. Look no further, I mean, I'm speechless.
It's some good wow. Anyway, Now, if you're familiar with like
the hemlock tree, to me, the female cones look quite a lot like
a closed hemlock cone. But apparently only one seed typically develops per cone,
and it's then dispersed off in the wind on its perianth or a papery wing.
Okay, yeah, the photos I've seen like they look really colorful.
Didn't know it was one seed per cone. That's brutal. I don't know
how like typical it is. But they put all that energy into nectar and
they live on do so yay, you know what? Yeah? Who am
I to questioned this two hundred million year old strategy or whatever. Okay,
it knows what it's doing. Yeah obviously. Yeah. So because Wiwichia evolved
into what it is today well before the debut of familiar modern pollinating classics like
bees and butterflies and birds, It's thought that they are pollinated by flies and
insects of the order hemitera, which are considered the true bugs, which include
things like cicadas, if it's bedbugs and shield bugs. Though a particular one
called the willowitchie bug was once thought to be a key pollinator, but I
believe that that has since been debunked because they basically live on the plant,
but it seems to feed on its sap. Oh well, you know,
it still has its own special bug accessory, so I kind of like that.
And it is kind of a pretty bug too, it kind of is.
Yeah, yeah, And if you check out that documentary, you will
see tons of insects crawling on these plants, so including mealy bugs, I
think. But either way, because their hostile habitat, the slow growth and
the low seed production and germination well which yea do not have high rates of
reproduction in the wild, but it seems like this is offset by their impressive
longevity and wild populations are fairly abundant, and the plant does not seem to
be in danger of over collecting or destruction of habitat, and it currently has
a status of near threatened, which means that while it's being monitored, it's
not of significant concern for conservationists. Yeah, this is weird to say,
maybe, but I'm so glad whenever I hear that this plant isn't nearly extinct
in the wild. Oh, it seems like it should be, right,
Yeah, it's just so old and fragile in some ways, and like,
thank god, it's not at all feasible to collect wild ones. Yeah,
you can't really poach a twenty six foot wide plant with a tap root as
deep as easily as you can, like you four Bob sat cram your pockets
with those. Yeah, hopefully it's not and hopefully it's clearly The one I
have is seed grown from a reputable nursery here in North America, and you
know, yeah, And actually that's another interesting point because there's actually currently a
fungal pathogen that seems to infect the female cones of many of the wild occurring
plants, which dramatically reduces seed viability. So in case this ever becomes relevant
to you, the interpretd person who wants to try growing these from seed,
your likelihood of success is much higher with seeds from cultivated plants rather than wild
collected because those have a much higher likelihood of coming with a fungal contamination that
will cause your seedling to die pretty shortly after it has started, so hopefully
that doesn't become a problem for the wild populations of the species in its native
habitat. But hey, this plants lived for thousands and thousands of years,
so yeah, even more reason to get it from a nursery strictly, Yeah,
for sure. Okay, So anything else, Matthew, I'm curious if
this was your way of saying that you're not very interested in growing will which
you I mean, in my own weird way, this is how I can
say that I respect the hell out of this fascinating plant, and I love
that it's alive and that I know about it, and there is a lot
to both know and guess about. But no, if I'm going to spend
that kind of money in time, I wanted to do something more for me
than just be what it is, which I feel like I hear you coming
out of my mouth when I say that a plant that does more kind of
yeah, yeah, And I mean, you know what, We're different and
that's why this works exactly. Okay, So on this week's after show for
official patrons, we just have a couple of other questions that somehow didn't manage
to get shoehorned into this hefty episode. How on earth did we managed to
have points from outlining that didn't already get discussed? We have a problem,
yeah, but you know. Head over to Patreon dot com slash Plant Daddy
Podcast if you're interested in joining. Okay, anything else, No, I
think that's absolutely it. Well, this has been Plant Teddy Podcast. Thanks
for listening. Don't forget to like and subscribe, tell your friends about us.
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Thanks for listening and happy growing. Sorry I had to take a breath
reallysing quickly. Okay,