You can find this monarch of bunjin pines and other great trees on Michael Hagedorn’s Crataegus Bonsai website. This one is from the 2004 Taikan Ten show in Japan and is part of an article called Japanese Shows that Michael posted in 2008 (the caption says White pine; however, it looks like a Black pine to me).
Digging around
Sometimes digging around through old material pays off (if you call 2008 old). I found this powerful, stately old pine (above) and several other magnificent trees while digging around Michael Hagedorn’s postings on Crataegus Bonsai. It’s part of a posting called Japanese Shows that features trees that Michael worked on while he was an apprentice in Japan. Here are two to whet your appetite. For the rest you can visit Michael’s site.
Michael’s excellent book
If you haven’t read Michael Hagedorn’s excellent book (Post Dated – The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk) on his experience as a bonsai apprentice in Japan, this is a good time to get your hands on it – Stone Lantern is currently running a big book sale.
This Itoigawa juniper is from Kokufu ten, the most prestigeous show of all.
Nice pine! Bark looks like a really old white pine to me; the style is more in line with what they do with red pines.
Hi Al,
It’s the needles that look like black pine to me. Bark and overall feel too, but I’ve had egg on my face so many times so maybe I should just back down now. I guess you could confirm with Michael next time you see him.
It is a white pine, needles aren’t stiff and upright enough.
what ever it is i love it john just have to get back into it .
It’s a white pine, folks. The photo is of the tree after I worked on it while an apprentice… also, it says ‘goyomatsu’ in kanji underneath the photo!
Thanks Michael. I guess you would know, and also had a hunch you wouldn’t mislabel it. Still, I’m pretty sure it’s a black pine (just kidding… sort of).