It’s the single branch of banksia in a shallow metal bowl on the dining table in my 14th-storey suite that does it. I’m admiring the afternoon sun shining from across the Swan River on its two cones and silvery spray of leaves when it strikes me how revolutionary The Ritz-Carlton’s 100th hotel feels.

This brand, whose story begins with Swiss hotelier César Ritz, founder in 1898 of that paragon of glamour, The Hotel Ritz Paris, has through some alchemy elevated a dried branch of a common native Australian plant into something that suddenly seems precious and beautiful.