Mimulus, demonstrating tremendous flower-power at the margins of bricks outside R&R Sport, on the corner of Stuart and Cumberland Sts, Dunedin.
A website dedicated to the scientific adoration of this genus, www.mimulusevolution.org, notes it has been "a popular model for the study of plant evolution" since the 1940s because of its all-round diversity.
How unlikely is that?
Central Dunedin footpaths are red brick from the intersection of George and Frederick Sts south to the Exchange, and including the Octagon and Lower Stuart St.
Flowers are in no way the intended pattern on this fabric.
Dunedin City Council communications officer Rodney Bryant said, "Basically, anything living at street level is considered a weed and is sprayed. It's sort of a blitzkrieg operation, I'm afraid."
When interviewed in October, Mr Bryant had actually phoned the Otago Daily Times to alert the newspaper to the yellow flower pictured, which he considered "a little ray of sunshine" growing against the urban odds.
He was not aware this series was already being written.
That the bloom was considered independently newsworthy is another indication of its unlikeliness.
So how did it get there?
"Fecundity is high, with up to 2000 seeds produced from a single flower," the mimulus website notes.
Mimulus is known to grow in the wild around Dunedin, so the seeds could have blown in, or been inadvertently carried by humans or birds.
They are less likely to have been part of a planned urban flowerbed.
Petunias, on the other hand, are popular ornamental flowers, and a white petunia soon bloomed within metres of the yellow mimulus.
This raised a new puzzle: why is this street corner apparently so fertile for flowering plants? Perhaps it is an aesthete . . .
When was it spotted?
The red mimulus bloom was photographed in July.
Still flowering, the plant was destroyed by spray on or about October 13.
A few weeks later, just around the corner, the yellow bloom appeared.
Is it still there?
No, but what with that fecundity, expect mimulus to rise again.
