The Flower I Never Noticed on a Tree I Already Knew

It began, as many things do at Dumyé, with a book.

I came across a copy of Floriography, a beautifully illustrated guide to the Victorian language of flowers. The idea stopped me completely. That for centuries, people had used flowers to say the things that words couldn’t quite carry. That a bouquet wasn’t just a gesture but a sentence, sometimes a whole conversation, passed between people who understood the code.

I found myself wondering whether anything like that existed here. In this part of the world. In the culture I have been fortunate enough to call home for more than twenty years.

So I started looking.

What I found was not a codified language in the Victorian sense, not a rulebook or a dictionary. But there was something. In classical Arabic poetry, in Quranic references, in the botanical traditions that traveled with Arab civilisation across centuries, there was a rich and largely untold story about what flowers had meant to people in this region.

I went deep into it. I always do when something genuinely fascinates me.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that research — which was also, it turned out, the beginning of research for a new Designer Dumyé we are working on — I kept finding myself returning to the same flower.

Not the rose. Not the jasmine.

The Ghaf Blossom.

I already knew the Ghaf tree, of course. Most people who have spent time in the UAE do. It is the national tree. It appears on government buildings and sustainability campaigns and cultural initiatives. It is everywhere, in the way that national symbols tend to be.

But I had never really noticed the flower.

It blooms twice a year, in spring and again in the cooler months, in small clusters of marigold yellow. It is easy to miss. The tree is so present, so known, that the blossom disappears into the background of something everyone already thinks they understand.

What I read about the Ghaf changed the way I saw it.

This is a tree whose roots reach thirty meters into desert sand, drawing water from places no other plant can reach. It does not stand above the landscape. It shelters it. The Bedouin gathered beneath its shade for counsel and community. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum named it the Union Tree — one Ghaf representing the seven Emirates, held together not by proximity but by shared roots running deep underground.

Its strength has never come from standing above others. It comes from creating shade for those around it.

I thought of the women I know here.

I thought of the Emirati women who have, over twenty years, quietly made space for Dumyé, through commissions and collaborations, through introductions and invitations, through opening doors I could not have found alone. I thought of how rarely that kind of generosity announces itself. How it simply happens, like shade.

And I thought: this is the flower I want to give.

Finding the right artist turned out to be one of the more unexpectedly beautiful parts of this story.

I knew what I was looking for — a scientific botanical illustration, the kind that belongs in a museum collection. Precise, elegant, drawn with the patience and knowledge of someone who has studied the plant seriously. I looked at many talented artists. I struggled to find the right one.

And then, somewhere deep in a search that had already taken more turns than I can remember, I found a page from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, one of the most prestigious botanical illustration programmes in the world. Among the graduates featured in their 2022 show was an Emirati woman named Haya Alketbi, who had spent a year in Edinburgh studying scientific botanical illustration and had chosen, for her diploma project, to illustrate the native plants of the UAE.

I could not find a website or a direct contact. I found two people on Instagram who shared her name — both Emirati, both connected to Edinburgh — and sent them both a slightly apologetic message explaining what I was looking for. One wrote back with the kindest possible version of “I’m not her, but I hope you find her.”

So I called the school in Edinburgh.

They could not share her details. But they offered to forward an email, and said that if she wanted to respond, she would. I sent the email. I waited.

She wrote back.

What Haya created is Plate I — The Ghaf Blossom, Prosopis cineraria.

A watercolor on watercolor paper, rendered with the precision of a scientific illustration and the beauty of something you would want to live with. The inflorescence moves diagonally down the page, the blooms opening as they travel up the branch — from the tight, closed buds at the tip to the open marigold flowers higher up. Behind it, rendered in blue-green tones so soft they are almost a whisper, a suggestion of Ghaf leaves.

We produced 67 hand-torn gićlée prints on fine art rag 285gsm cotton paper. Each one signed and numbered in pencil by Haya.

They are being gifted throughout this month, Emirati Women’s Month, to a small circle of women who have shaped Dumyé’s world over the years. Patrons, collaborators, loyal customers, friends of the brand. The packaging is being made by hand in our studio, a slow process of bookbinding that felt right for an object asking to be kept. Each delivery is its own small ceremony.

Reaching out to those women to confirm addresses brought something unexpected with it. Most responded with a warmth and excitement that reminded me why this kind of gesture matters. While a handful — some of them people who had commissioned bespoke dolls, who had brought Dumyé into some of the most significant moments in their lives — wrote back with some version of: I didn’t realize you were still here. Or, my personal favorite: Dumyé who?

It made me laugh. We have been quieter online these past few years, though not quieter in the studio. Much of our work has been happening behind closed doors — larger commissions with cultural institutions and private clients, the kind of work that is meaningful and as a creative totally consuming. And there is something holy about keeping it all to myself instead of packaging it for a public feed. But silence has its costs. And this project has been, among other things, a reminder of that.

The Ghaf Blossom is also the inspiration for a new Designer Dumyé doll launching before the end of this month. She carries the same story, translated into the language Dumyé knows best.

But that is a story for very soon.

For now: the flower most people have never noticed on a tree almost everyone knows.

Love & Light,
Sahar

Plate I — The Ghaf Blossom, Prosopis cineraria, illustrated by Haya Alketbi for Dumyé, 2026. Edition of 67.