424 On the Welwitschia Mirabilis. 



ON THE WELWITSCHIA MIBABILTS, Hook, Fil. 



BY JOHN E. JACKSON, 

 Curator, Museum, Royal Gardens, Kew. 



(With a Tinted Plate.) 



In a recent number of the Intellectual Observer we gave 

 our readers an account of the Araucarias, one of the most 

 interesting genera of the Coniferge. We now propose to speak 

 of another most peculiar and interesting genus belonging to an 

 order closely allied to that family — viz., the GnetaceEe, or jointed 

 firs. Seldom, if ever, has the discovery of a new plant created 

 such an amount of interest in the scientific world as the subject 

 of this paper. As a sensational plant, if we may so use the 

 word, nothing has equalled it since the discovery of the 

 gigantic parasite the Rafflesia Arnoldii, which so startled the 

 savans about the year 1819. In 1860, Dr. Frederic Welwitsch, 

 an Austrian botanist of some note, who had been exploring 

 some of the regions of South-west Tropical Africa for some 

 time previously, on behalf of the Portuguese Government, 

 came upon an elevated sandy plateau about five hundred miles 

 to the south of Cape Negro, in lat. 15° 40' S. His attention 

 was immediately attracted to a number of curious formations 

 rising from a foot to eighteen inches above the surface of the 

 ground, varying from two to fourteen feet in circumference, 

 and having a flat, somewhat depressed top of a brown dingy 

 colour, and appearing more like large stools or small tables 

 than any living plant. The amazement caused by first behold- 

 ing such a scene can very well be imagined ; what, then, must 

 it have been to the practised eyes of an accomplished botanist, 

 who, upon nearing the scene, must have been pretty sure that 

 he had alighted upon something to startle his European 

 brethren. 



Of course, Dr. Welwitsch/ s first proceeding was to secure a 

 plant, and the materials for working out its scientific classifi- 

 cation. He subsequently addressed a letter to the late Sir. W. 

 J. Hooker, acquainting him of his great discovery. This 

 letter, received towards the end of 1860, containing the first 

 notice of this extraordinary plant, was immediately communi- 

 cated to the Linncean Society of London, and naturally excited 

 an intense interest. In subsequent correspondence with 

 Dr. Hooker on the subject, Dr. Welwitsch very liberally 

 proposed to send his specimens to Kew for examination and 

 publication. But twelve or eighteen months elapsed before 

 they arrived, during which time Mr. Baines, the artist, formerly 



