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BBM encodes a transcription factor that regulates embryonic development, while WUS encodes a transcription factor that maintains stem cell identity in the shoot apical meristem region.

Emma Erler, landscape and greenhouse field specialist at the University of New Hampshire Extension, says every plant has a meristem, a type of tissue that contains cells that can develop into different plant parts.

Just in front of it lies the polychate worm version of the apical meristem in plants: a place where stem cells continuously generate new body parts called the posterior growth zone.

But Welwitschia’s original growing tip dies, and leaves instead pour out of a vulnerable area of the plant’s anatomy called the basal meristem, which supplies fresh cells to the growing plant, Dr. Wan said.

The only problem was that the researchers did not know what gene might control the meristem’s pace of shoot production.