Once upon a time, beneath the wide, clear skies of the southern African east coast, a beautiful evergreen scandent shrub named Keetia gueinzii was contentedly rooting it out in the wild. Life was bountiful: a plentiful grove, rust-coloured hairs adorning her young branches, and a splash of green leaves that held the promise of a magnificent future. She had no complaints against her life, save for one - she yearned for a name, a distinguished recognition. One glorious sunny day, her dream was granted. A charming German naturalist, Wilhelm Gueinzius, happened across her lush nook. His keen eyes fell on her, and his heart was touched by her beauty, her serene grace. Like any man swayed by love, he honoured his beloved by christening her with his own name - 'Keetia Gueinzii.' A love affair like no other ensued - one that wouldn't appear on the headlines of tabloids, but would whisper a profound story for those who cared to listen. Keetia swayed in joy for years to the fond gestures of Gueinzius - his touch, his care, his scientific jargon, which she didn’t quite comprehend but sensed were melodic love sonnets nonetheless. She glowed under his admiration, blooming in all her glory. Her fruit, somewhat oblong in profile, ripened to a radiant black, symbolising her burgeoning love. In contrast, another narrative unfolded in the heart of the German naturalist. Gueinzius confessed to his diary, “My dear Keetia, I am but a man torn between love and duty. My heart desires nothing more than to offer you my time and devotion, but my ambitions demand of me commitments to the cold sciences and ceaseless excursions." Yet, hope persists in the fulsome shadow of dreams. The love affair soldiered on, nestled within the confines of Keetia's thicket and the recesses of Gueinzius's heart. Then one year, he did not return. The seasons changed, the rains clattered, and the sun baked the earth, but of her beloved, there was no trace. Keetia stood alone, her bullate leaves now drooping in sorrow, her fruit rotting, her dreams wilting with every passing day. She waited for bedtime stories of foreign lands, for shared whispers under the moonlit sky, for his touch, his presence. Yet, all she met was the deafening silence of nature, its indifference, its pitiless game of life and death. Wilhelm Gueinzius never returned. His promises of love became figments of a forgotten tale; tales of a tragic love affair etched into the unfeeling fabric of nature. Keetia Gueinzii bore the weight of her humiliation, her once resonant dreams plummeted into a well of obscurity, all because of an aimless passion for a German naturalist. In a world too busy chasing grandeur, here stand they: a scorned shrub bearing a man’s name, remembering an erstwhile lover, and a German naturalist buried under the weight of an unkept promise. Alas, such is the tragic tale of time and love, where dreams bloom only to wilt, to be coloured by the hues of forgotten memories. The saga of Keetia Gueinzii and Wilhelm Gueinzius serves as a dire reminder - not all love stories are etched in the stars. Some are lost, unnoticed, in the pages of unromantic, rigorous scientific journals and the solitude of the wild forest undergrowth. A testament indeed to wilted dreams and tragic love affairs.