Dawnfade Bloom · Nebulophyta pallescens

A small perennial 10–18 cm tall. It spreads dark-red slender leaves near the ground and draws water through them only during the few foggy hours. Its roots depend on a thin acidic soil layer made by lichens and fungi, and it lies dormant for long spells on the dry gravel. The flowers are deep wine-purple at night, turning pale grey-violet before dawn as fog swells their cells.

Moving Image

Vertical, as filmed / tap to play

Film coming soon

MOTION CLIP

Almost no specimens remain.

This footage was made vertical (9:16) and is also published on social media. The archive keeps it in its original ratio.

9:16 VERTICALCLIPSOUND ON

Specimen Plates

8 plates · click to play

PLATE I

PLATE II

PLATE III

PLATE IV

PLATE V

PLATE VI

PLATE VII

PLATE VIII

Field Note

Habitat

Coastal gravel of the Namib Desert, where sea fog drifts in before dawn. At the start of the dry season it appears only in shallow hollows where quartz pebbles and a thin lichen film remain.

Local name

Candle Before the Wind

Folklore

Locally it is remembered as a sign before the dry east wind. Old stories say that on mornings when the flower's colour thins before dawn, the sea fog breaks and the gravel flats dry out within days.

Locator

Coordinates

24.7°S 15.1°E

Coastal gravel of the Namib Desert, where sea fog drifts in before dawn

Record

Narration

0:00 / --:--

This flower loses its colour before morning.

And so almost no specimens remain.

Along the Namib coast lies gravel that fog reaches only before dawn.

There, it is said, the Dawnfade Bloom appears.

Through the night the flower is a deep grape-purple.

But in the short time the fog is thickest, the petals take in water and fade to grey-violet.

More分類・学名・語源などの詳しい標本データ▼

Classification

Classification & specimen data

Scientific name

Nebulophyta pallescens M. Castellan, 1986

Taxonomy

Plantae › Angiosperms › Dicotyledons › Nebulophytales › Nebulophytaceae › Nebulophyta › pallescens

Voucher

AVF-002 · Holotype
Archive of Vanished Flora (AVF)

Conservation

✝ EX — Extinct Last seen 1989

Collector

T. Okabe
1984-03-15

Synonym

Nebuloopsis pallescens K. Brandt, 1982

Protologue (Latin)

Suffrutex nanus, foliis imbricatis, floribus solitariis nocte apertis. Typus: Coastal gravel of the Namib Desert, where sea fog drifts in before dawn. Species iam extincta.

Discovered / Described

1984 / 1986

Height

10〜18cm

Life form

Perennial herb

Phyllotaxy

Alternate

Chromosome

2n = 18

Flowering

A few hours around dawn