The Flower That Found Me

I found a flower on my daily walk the other day. It caught my eye immediately – it didn’t look like anything that belonged in my neighbourhood in Melbourne.

Intrigued, I took a photo and ran a search. It turned out to be a Gardenia thunbergia – a species native to the southern and eastern coastal regions of South Africa, about as far from Melbourne as you can get.

What made it stranger still was the timing. In cooler southern states like Victoria, Gardenia thunbergia typically flowers from November through to late summer. I found this one on the 19th of March – well into autumn – lying intact on the ground, around 900 metres from the nearest bush.

And it had 9 petals. Every flower on the bush had 10.

I’m not sure what the odds are of finding a South African gardenia in a Melbourne park in autumn, away from its source, with an unusual petal count. But it stopped me in my tracks.

It reminded me why I travel – that feeling of encountering something completely unexpected, something that makes you stop and look more carefully at the world around you. You don’t always have to go far to find it.

Sometimes it finds you.

Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder

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