| |
| | Torn to Ribbons in the Desert: Science News Online, Oct. 27, 2001 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21) |
 | | Darwin was fascinated when he learned of Welwitschia and its extraordinary mixture of advanced and primitive characteristics and called it "the vegetable Ornithorhynchus," the platypus of the plant world. |
 | | New York, N.Y. In your article on Welwitschia mirabilis, you state that "botanists have classified it with conifers." On the contrary, botanists classify it in the phylum Gnetophyta, along with Gnetum and Ephedra, rather than in the phylum Coniferophyta. |
 | | The text of the story itself, however, was clearer in dealing with classification at a much broader level, placing "the species with the gymnosperms, the broad group that includes conifers. |
| www.sciencenews.org /articles/20011027/bob12.asp (2873 words) |
|