Species Spotlight: Cypress (Taxodium distichum, ascendens, mucronatum)

This month’s Species Spotlight (by our First Curator’s Assistant, Andy Bello) turns the light on three different species that constitute the genus Taxodium: Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum), Pond Cypress (Taxodium ascendens) and Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum). All three species are located in our collections at The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. 

Old Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) at Lake Drummond, VA (Photo by Andy Bello)

Taxodium are extremely flood-tolerant, deciduous conifers in the cypress family Cupressacae. These trees can reach heights of about 100-150 feet and trunk diameters reaching more than 37 feet. A distinctive feature of taxodium is the formation of pneumatophores, also known as “cypress knees.” Some bonsai experts debate whether the knees aid in the uptake of oxygen or if they support the trees in wet soil conditions. 

Species history and general facts

Bald cypresses are mainly found along rivers with silt-rich flood deposits throughout the Southeastern United States and even up the Mississippi River into Southern Indiana. 

Pond cypresses live within the Southeastern Coastal Plain, from North Carolina to Louisiana, and grow in more stagnant blackwater rivers, ponds and swamps, rather than silt-rich flood deposits. 

Montezuma cypresses are found between the lower Rio Grande Valley down to the highlands of Guatemala. This cypress is a riparian tree that grows along streams and rivers. This species tends to be evergreen and not deciduous, given its distribution in a consistently warm climate. Montezuma cypresses on average have the largest trunk size, with some reaching about 37.5 feet in diameter.

Take a look at some of the cypresses we have at the Museum!

Bald Cypress

This bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) #269 is located in the North American Collection. It has been in training since 1972, and the late Vaughn Banting donated the tree in 2000. Banting originally purchased the tree as a nursery plant. This bald cypress, along with one at the Pacific Bonsai Museum, are the first two trained into a configuration Banting championed called “Flat Top Style.” The flat top style with knees protruding from the soil is a very distinctive trait of bald cypresses.

Read more about the history of this bald cypress, Vaughn Banting and the flat top style here.


Montezuma Cypress

This montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) #274, now located the North American Collection, was donated by Mike Naka in 2004 in honor of his grandfather and bonsai master, the late John Y. Naka. 

John Naka purchased this bonsai from a nursery in Los Angeles after traveling from Denver in 1946 and began training the tree in 1948. The bonsai is trained in the formal upright style to invoke the massive height and girth often seen in the species. By keeping the primary branches short and closer to the trunk, Naka provided an even grander image of the species’ height. 

Montezuma cypresses are evergreen in their native warm climate, but their seasonal beauty can truly be appreciated when they are allowed to thrive in Northern climates.

Pond Cypress (with bald cypresses)

This group planting of a pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens) and multiple bald cypresses (Taxodium distichum) #250 is located in the North American Collection. Jim Fritchey and Dick Wild donated the planting, comprised of trees collected from the wild Floridian swamps, in 1990 after arranging the original planting in 1988. 

As the forest in this planting evolved, a number of trees were removed after some trees couldn’t keep up with the competition for light – a common phenomenon in natural forests. The composition was rearranged to ensure the longevity of the planting.

The photo above is how the planting appears at the Museum today. The large pond cypress on the left with a strong lean provides directionality, while the group of bald cypresses on the right provides depth. The seven-foot stone slab, which weighs about 1,500 pounds, evokes a natural look compared to the typical ceramic container. 

Come and visit The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in all four seasons to experience the beauty of Taxodium in the collection. The lush bright green spring growth and the brilliant red and orange fall foliage is best to appreciate in person. I hope that these trees inspire everyone to work more with native species and create bonsai in a meaningful manner.

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Species Spotlight: Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia)

The interesting pattern which gives Lacebark Elms their name.

The Chinese Elm, also known as Ulmus parvifolia or Lacebark Elm, is a deciduous tree species native to China, Korea and Japan. The name Lacebark Elm refers to the interesting pattern created as parts of the tree’s bark flake off with age. This elm is a very hardy species that can grow in moist or dry soils – these trees can survive in USDA Hardiness Zones 4 through 9 – and thrive in hot urban environments. 

The elms typically have an upright trunk with a wide round canopy, and the average height is about 70 feet. This species is also resistant to diseases and pests, like Dutch elm disease and Japanese bark beetle. Three different Ulmus parvifolia are located at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

This Chinese Elm, a penjing donated by Dr. Yee-sun Wu in 1986, resides in the Chinese Collection. The elm has been in training as a penjing since 1956 and was planted in the “rock-clinging” style. In this composition, a beautiful piece of Ying Tak Stone was placed vertically and two Chinese Elms were set in the natural contours of the stone. 

The trunk line of the tree on the left moves leftward up the rock to a wide, rounded canopy. The smaller tree on the right provides foliage mass and adds directionality to the overall composition. The beautiful blue antique container contrasts with the orange-red fall foliage, which can be seen in the late fall months at the Museum. 

Our second Chinese elm, also from the Chinese Collection, was donated by D.C. Metro native Stanley Chinn in 2002. The training age of this tree is unknown, but based on the trunk diameter the tree appears to have grown in the ground for decades before being put into a container. 

The style of this tree is “windswept” or “wind blowing”. The elongated branches on the left and the short branches on the right create the illusion of a powerful wind blowing on the tree from the right side. The interesting and exciting windswept style simultaneously depicts gracefulness and denotes strong environmental conditions.

The last Chinese Elm composition is a wonderful landscape planting, which is part of the Chinese Collection. Penjing Master Yunhua Hu donated the composition in 2004 after he created it earlier that year at the U.S. National Arboretum’s Penjing Symposium. This is an excellent example of penjing in which not just a single tree is displayed, but a combination of trees, understory plants, stones and figurines. The intricate design demonstrates how using multiple smaller trees can create a large and pleasing display. 

The movement of the whimsical trees guides the viewer to settle their gaze on a small stream with a gentleman fishing. The stream pulls the viewer in and provides a nice break between the larger and smaller groupings of trees, adding to the overall directionality of the whole composition. 

Ask to see the outstanding examples of Chinese Elms in our collection on your next visit to the Museum!

The National Bonsai Foundation Announces Retirement of Dr. Johann F Klodzen

Dr. Klodzen to step down after nearly 20 years as Executive Director

Johann Klodzen at the U.S. National Arboretum (2020)

As of February 1st, 2020, Johann Klodzen will step down from her role as Executive Director of The National Bonsai Foundation (“NBF”). All of NBF’s officers and members of its Board of Directors are sincerely grateful to Johann for her nearly 20 years of service guiding NBF’s work in support of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum (the “USNA”).

During her tenure at NBF, Johann collaborated closely with several Directors of the USNA, most recently Dr. Richard Olsen; supervised NBF’s involvement in numerous projects at the Museum, including the complete rebuilding of The Japanese Pavilion and most recently the development of a master plan for the future renovation of the rest of the Museum; oversaw NBF’s efforts to give NBF and the Museum a significant online presence; oversaw the inauguration and publication of NBF’s Annual Report in 2016, which received several awards for design; and worked tirelessly to give the Museum an increased recognition in the United States and across the world of bonsai enthusiasts. Her passion for and knowledge of the artform was infectious to all of those who had the privilege to work alongside her. Though she is leaving the position, we know Johann will continue to be a part of our bonsai family.

While we conduct a search for a new Executive Director, we are delighted to announce that Bobbie Alexander will step into the role as Interim Director of Administration. Bobbie has served as Chief of Staff and Managing Director of Governance for the American Diabetes Association, as a Senior Administrative Consultant for The Food Allergy Research & Education Association and most recently as Chief of Staff and Operations for the National Health Council. We are confident that during this transition period, we are in very good hands.

Though we begin 2020 on a note of bidding farewell to our esteemed colleague, there is much to look forward to in the new decade ahead. Our next Executive Director will be tasked with the exciting planned renovations of the Museum, overseeing NBF’s efforts to make that project a reality, thereby ensuring the continuation of NBF’s mission of preserving a history, protecting a legacy, and preparing a future.

Historical Tree Spotlight: Coast Redwood

The Chambers’ Christmas Card, 1980. The message inside the card reads: “Whether giant or bonsai, the roots of the redwood spread and intertwine to anchor the majestic evidence that God intended, similarly do the roots of Christmas support our faith that man, too, can stand tall. Have a very Merry Christmas, June and Bob Chambers.”

“All I want for Christmas is a bonsai tree” is probably what June Chambers was singing in 1949. She got her wish – and that gift prompted a long life devoted to learning about and caring for bonsai. Chambers developed a beautiful collection, and since then she’s been sending Christmas cards with a different bonsai on the front each year.

One particular Christmas card stands out: the one with a beautiful redwood, or Sequoia sempervirens, on the front. 

Peter Sugawara, a bonsai practitioner who owned Monte Bello Nursery in California, started training this coast redwood from a seedling in 1954. Chambers bought the tree from him in 1972, and Sugawara spent years visiting her yard to help her train the tree. Chambers donated the redwood to our Museum in 1990, and volunteers and curators have been caring for the tree in the North American Pavilion ever since.

“It’s interesting that Sequoia sempervirens is the tallest living thing in the world and the oldest one known of in the Redwood National Park is more than 1,000 years old,” National Bonsai & Pening Museum Curator Michael James said. “It’s likely that this is the smallest redwood that anyone will ever see.”

Caring for the coast redwood

James said the redwood produces shoots with two lateral rows of small needles that can be pinched to ensure the growth doesn’t elongate too much.

Trees in this species develop clustered, vegetative buds at the junction of branches throughout the growing season, he said. If left alone, the clusters will form a whorl, meaning more than two shoots grow from one location. But James said you can prevent that phenomenon from happening on a redwood if you regularly rub off additional buds with a finger or a pair of tweezers, allowing only two shoots or buds to remain at each branch division.

 “If those shoots and vegetative buds are not selected down to only two from every location, then bulbus accumulations of callous cells start to form, which leads to an undesirable inverse taper of the trunk or branches,” James said. 

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: A Winter’s Visit

As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss"," published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.

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Washington, D.C. has resisted giving itself over to winter this year, with 70 degree days and only a handful of nights below freezing. On one of these warm January days, I visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum to photograph the trees in the winter light.

While the trees are the main attraction, the Museum grounds are not to be overlooked. The cryptomeria-lined entrance gives you the sense of moving from one world to another, emerging through the main gates to the courtyard where a single tree can be seen.

Stephen Voss

To find the majority of the trees, you must walk through the Chinese Pavilion, in which the trees spend the colder months. The open air building boasts a roof of translucent glass, which keeps the pavilion a few degrees warmer than outside. But more importantly, this glass is the key to creating some of the most beautiful light the Museum sees all year. The low-angled winter sunbeams scatter and soften as they pass through the panes but somehow still retain a certain crispness as they fall upon the resting trees.

The trees are often just inches apart from each other, allowing for one to observe the collection as a miniature bonsai forest – a remix of the typical presentation that gives each tree its own space. In these tight configurations, there are photographs to be made exploring the relationships between the trees.

Stephen Voss

There are signs of life to be found in the pavilion even a third of the way through winter. Camellias are bursting with blooms and the Chinese quince’s jewel-like green buds erupt skyward. Winter light in the Chinese Pavilion never comes from straight above, but shines from hard angles, reflecting the shortened daylight hours.

Stephen Voss

The Toringo Crab Apple, in training since 1905 and one of my favorite trees, still bears some small yellow fruit that faintly sways in the breeze from the circulating fan.

Winter is a season of rest and stillness, and I don’t think there’s a better time of year to visit the Museum. Over the year and a half that I was photographing my book – In Training, A Book of Bonsai Photos – the majority of the photographs were produced from the two winters I spent there. The bare deciduous trees become abstract forms, and it’s at these times that the invisible hands of the bonsai master’s work are most clearly seen. 

Museum to Hold First Origami Class with Jeff Raab

“Origami is an incredibly natural fit alongside the bonsai work, because they both rely on the essence of nature to create a beautiful art form.”

— Jeff Raab, Origami Instructor

When thinking of ancient arts, where does your mind first wander? Perhaps you think of tai chi or even bonsai training – but what about origami? According to the Public Broadcasting Service, the folding art became popular in China around 105 A.D., but  soon made its way to Japan and eventually the rest of the globe.

We spoke with Jeff Raab, a professional origamist who will be leading the Museum’s first-ever origami class, Origami & Bonsai: Ancient Arts Collide, happening at the Museum Jan. 18. (You can sign up here). Raab told us about how a beginner’s origami book he was gifted as a child became a lifelong passion. 

“Every kid has their thing, trains or dinosaurs – my thing was animals,” Raab said.

Unlike some childhood hobbies that fade with time, Raab found solace in origami again as a young adult while pursuing an acting career in New York. For about five years now, he has worked with Taro’s Origami Studio, teaching folding workshops and delving deeper into the complex models.

“I’d only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of what origami was, and there was so much more I wasn’t aware of,” he said. “Origami is this vast unending realm of possibility. If you can think of it, somebody’s probably come up with an origami version of it.”

Raab teaches folding to young origamists at Taro’s Origami Studio.

Raab said origami now provides him with a much needed break from a chaotic New York day, instead of just acting as a way to pass the time.   

“I love that it’s meditative,” he said. “You’re always engaged with it, but it’s not rushed. You’re patient with it.”

How the ancient arts collide

Both origami and bonsai have been practiced for hundreds of years, and the versatile art forms complement each other with their creativity and precision, Raab said.

“They’re both meditative and engaging,” he said. 

Raab said the atmosphere and organic beauty at The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum presents an amazing location for his upcoming origami class. 

“Origami is an incredibly natural fit alongside the bonsai work, because they both rely on the essence of nature to create a beautiful art form,” he said. 

Vulture and eagle origami

What to expect at Raab’s session

Raab wants to ensure that he introduces the art form in depth, rather than simply presenting a few entertaining models. 

“I want to offer some of the underlying concepts around origami so that the class is not just about how to fold three or four things but rather provides some ideas people can expand upon,” he said. 

Participants will learn different bases and models, and anyone from a novice origamist to a seasoned folder is welcome.

“I’m treating this as a total beginner, no experience needed, never done it before introduction to origami,” Raab said. “I’m anticipating starting from – no pun intended – square one.”

To get your start in the origami world, or to brush up on your folding techniques, sign up for Origami & Bonsai: Ancient Arts Collide held Saturday, Jan. 18!

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A few spots remain for Saturday’s children-family Origami & Bonsai workshop. Learn more and register here.

Learn more about our friends at National Symphony Orchestra and their origami crane project here.

Hiring: First Curator's Apprentice

The first Curator of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum was Robert Drechsler who served in that position from the founding of the Museum in 1976 until 1998.  In 2011, during the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Museum, an internship for the Museum was established by the National Bonsai Foundation to honor Mr. Drechsler for his many years of service. It was called the First Curator’s Apprenticeship.

The purpose of the apprenticeship is to educate and train a new generation of American bonsai artists. It is sponsored by Toyota North America and the Hill Foundation.

Applications are currently being accepted for the 2020 First Curator’s Apprentice.

Historical Tree Spotlight: The Museum’s First Tree

Nobusuke Kishi, former president of the Nippon Bonsai Association, hands the list of the 53 bonsai gifts to U.S. Ambassador James Hodgson at a ceremony in Tokyo, Japan. The tree on the left is the first Japanese black pine donated to the Museum.

The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum was created after the United States received a wonderful bicentennial gift of 53 bonsai from Japan in 1976. For this month’s historical tree spotlight, we wanted to highlight the first tree on the list of gifted bonsai: a black pine donated by Saichi Suzuki.

A symbolic facet to the Nippon Bonsai Association’s gift, the pine is believed to have been about 200 years old – the same age as the United States when the gift was given. While Japanese black pines can now be found growing all over the world, the species is native to Japan. 

Museum curator Michael James said the tree embodies “yamadori,” the practice of digging a tree from the wild and putting it into a container. Saichi Suzuki, the tree’s donor, collected and began training the pine in a bonsai pot in 1895. According to James,  the tree is estimated to have been about 125 years old when Suzuki removed it from Atsumi Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture in Japan.

Suzuki later founded Daiju-en, a very famous bonsai nursery in Japan (at which former Museum curator and current NBF board member Jack Sustic once studied). Daiju-en is famous for cultivating Japanese black pines, and Suzuki is often credited with being the first to discover the black pine decandling technique – a process completed in the summertime after a pine’s candle, or shoot tip, lengthens.  

Suzuki stumbled on that process by accident after witnessing a caterpillar eat the tips off a black pine. While usually thought to be a disaster, Suzuki saw that the insect’s munching actually produced a second growth of shoots with smaller needles than the first growth. This discovery was important because Japanese black pine needles tend to be fairly long for bonsai culture, at least compared to a white pine.

“We are always trying to reduce the size of leaves to make the trees look bigger,” James said. “That serendipitous caterpillar feast made him realize black pines can be decandled and put on a second flush of growth that is even smaller, more compact, better looking and proportional to a bonsai tree.”

James said Suzuki began experimenting with the decandling practice on his own and perfected the decandling technique that is now widespread in bonsai culture. 

“Decandling pines is critical for having well-maintained trees,” he said. 

Now in the Japanese Pavilion, the inaugural Japanese black pine is about 245 years old. Stop by our collection to see the tree that helped to launch our Museum.