by Ross Clark

Ross makes a number of excellent points in this article. If we are going to exhibit trees, we should do the research and have the proper name, both common and scientific. A little time and research may help others. - ED

The serious practice of bonsai outside its traditional centers of Japan and China is a relatively recent phenomenon, about a century old.  With the exception of a few early expatriates from those centers, world-wide bonsai activity has developed after World War Two.

As long as the center of bonsai practice was geographically limited, not very many species of plants were routinely used for bonsai, and their identities were well known to bonsai artists.  They used native pines, maples, junipers, elms, hackberries, beeches, cypresses and others which were close at hand and could be collected nearby or bought from local growers.  The environmental preferences of these local plants were well known, and many natural variants were discovered and brought into cultivation.  Since the names of these relatively few species and cultivars (= cultivated variants) were well known, and since bonsai practitioners learned the correct names as part of their training, names were no problem.

Because of its many positive attributes (which we know well), bonsai practice has now spread around the world.  The traditional Chinese and Japanese species still work well in many places, but wherever bonsai people live, today’s bonsai practitioners have discovered additional native and cultivated plants that work as well as or better than traditional Oriental material.  And local material is often easier and cheaper to obtain, and better adapted to where it is being grown.  In other words, bonsai folks now have a much greater range of plant material to work with: there are genera, species, varieties, and cultivars all over the world now being used for bonsai–so many plants, so little time!

Correctly matching the correct names of all of these plants requires mental effort and practice.  Some people would rather not learn the correct names–an oak is an oak, and a maple is a maple to them.  Frankly, that attitude and approach is not good enough for serious students of horticulture or of bonsai.  You must know and be able to use the names if you are to learn what is known about the plants, and convey that information accurately to others.  For instance, chalkbark maples and southern sugar maples are closely related, but their tolerances and styling should be approached differently if you want to simulate nature successfully.  Treating all maple species the same would be similar to treating all species of cats the same; it might even be risky!

The proper scientific name of a plant is like the label on a file that contains everything known about the plant.  Using the scientific name as key words (a species name is always a Latin binomial), you can go straight to lodes of reliable, useful information. However, a common name for a plant species doesn’t work as well for accessing reliable information, because common names vary from place to place and from country to country.

Even if the plants are healthy, the artisanship is inspiring, and an exhibit is esthetically outstanding, if the plants are sloppily or incorrectly labeled, it detracts from the quality of an exhibit and could make people think that ‘these folks are a bit amateurish.’  (And so most of us are, of course, but don’t we aspire to excellence?)  There is nothing more important in exhibiting bonsai than strict quality control of all aspects of the exhibit – you groom your trees, and remove dead material, you don’t cram trees together, you exhibit only your best, you clean out non-living material, pots and soil surfaces, use mats or stands, display at an appropriate height, with appropriate backgrounds, in pleasant surroundings.  And doggone it, you put correct names on the plants.  Its quality control we should live with if we display trees for the public.

So, here’s what prompted this whiny column in the first place.  Recently, I exhibited a small bonsai that was a selection of a hybrid between two species of crape myrtles.  I carefully wrote the correct name down for the label, which happens to be Lagerstroemia indica H Lagerstroemia fauriei 'Chickasaw'.  It could have been shortened to Lagerstroemia ‘Chicksaw.’  Using the correct name, you could learn that the plant is an ultra-dwarf selection of two species of crape myrtles developed at the U.S. Arboretum, one parent of which is hardier than the other, and other neat stuff . . .  Unfortunately, when I arrived at the exhibit, the plant had been relabeled and mislabeled as Lagerstroemia indica (= "straight" crape myrtle, which becomes tree-sized), and both the genus name Lagerstroemia had been misspelled.  If we want people to think we’re doing serious bonsai work, misidentifying our plants that way should not be acceptable.  Names do mean something.  We need to do better.  And well, I certainly wasn’t insulted.  Neither was the crape myrtle, but I could help feeling that the Society’s image could have needlessly suffered a bit.

Maybe I'm over-reacting.  After all, there are even a few misidentifications in the recent ABS American Bonsai book.  Should we care what they are, as long as they look good?  Yes, I think we should care.  For one thing, an identity mistake might send someone else out looking for the wrong species.

n a more positive note, I possibly could help verify or identify plants of dubious identity.  Woody plant classification has been my professional specialty for 45 years, and I’ve written three books on the subject.