The plant that lives a thousand years with two leaves

In the Namib Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, grows the welwitschia, one of the strangest plants there is. As soon as it sprouts it puts out two leaves. And those two leaves are the only ones it will ever have.

It never replaces them. They keep growing for centuries, and the wind and sun tear and fray them, so it looks like a tangle of twisted strips on the ground. But really, they're still just two.

The best part is how long it lasts: many specimens pass a thousand years, and some are thought to be close to two thousand. It survives with almost no rain, drinking the fog that rolls in from the sea.

A living thing that, with barely two ancient leaves, has been there since before almost every country on the map existed.