"Oldest" bonsai? or a load of BS...just wondering

[rockm]

Anyone know the ACTUAL history of the "Ficus Retusa Linn" in the Crespi Bonsai Museum?

It's owners claim the ficus to be the oldest bonsai on the planet, having been kept as a bonsai for 1,000 years. The museum's "history" of the tree is pretty short on detail and long on mostly hearsay and BS. That claim of "oldest" has been picked up all over the place with very little question and much awed enthusiasm (both of which are typically symptoms of a myth masquerading as fact)

I'm not saying they're fibbing, just wondering if they can back that claim up with actual documentation or at least a third party's testimony.

Crespi Bonsai Museum

The first permanent bonsai museum

www.crespibonsai.com

 

[Colorado]

Pretty cool, would be interested to know more about the tree’s history. 1000 years is a long time

 

[rockm]

Pretty cool, would be interested to know more about the tree’s history. 1000 years is a long time

Yeah. Which is why I really question the accuracy of that claim. I highly doubt anyone was actually doing bonsai 1,000 years ago, much less with a ficus in China. Having seen the post here on Vietnamese bonsai with those huge nursery ficus bonsai, can't help but wonder whether that is the true origin of this tree.

Crazy Ficus nursery

I think they are in China

www.bonsainut.com

 

[hemmy]

I am skeptical of the extreme age, just given the growth rates of ficus and thickening of vascular tissue and roots. It is hard to imagine that it spent any significant amount of time in the ground during its history since it seems like the basal trunks would be more massively fused. So it would have had to spend the majority of that time in a restricted root environment being aggressively pruned essentially has a penzai or some type of garden/temple tree. To survive that length of time, it would seem that it had been in the possession of very wealthy family or families that could trace their roots across several dynasties or it resided in some type of temple or sacred space. Over 1000 yo in 1986 would put it a couple hundred years after the 1st graphical evidence of miniaturized tray landscapes in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tang_dynasty_penzai.JPG)

I would think that a tree of that age and presumable stature would have been drawn or pictured in early books and would have been reproduced or collected by the Crespi Museum. It also seems unlikely that a tree of that historical significance would be allowed to leave the country. I don't doubt that it could be a few hundred years old as an organism and maintained as a cultivated tree for several generations as it suggested. But there is a giant difference between that and over 1000 years old!

When you click the picture on the OP link it gives you the below older picture. Searching the "Wayback Machine" internet archives gives a the bottom picture which is on their website as far back as the year 2000. The story goes that it was acquired in 1986, so one of these might be the oldest the photo in its current location. Given the overgrown nature of the black and white pic, I thought it could be the older image of its first arrival at the museum. The bottom color image appears to gaps in the fused roots that don't appear in the b&w image, but that could be lighting or angle. The b&w image also appears to have more skinny aerial roots that might have fused or been removed in later pictures. It doesn't seem like it's current display space would have the humidity required to generate aerial roots since it picured in a room with glass museum display cases.

Just my 2 cents

https://www.crespibonsai.com/upload/steasycontent/ficus-euroflora.jpg

Bonsai

CRESPI BONSAI - rare trees, bonsai accessories and complements, bonsai care, bonsai courses and the bonsai university, the greatest bonsai museum in Europe, bonsai books and bonsai literature, bonsai gifts, ...this and even more in the Crespi Bonsai Web Site

www.crespibonsai.it

Crespi Bonsai Museum

The first permanent bonsai museum

www.crespibonsai.com

 

[rockm]

I am skeptical of the extreme age, just given the growth rates of ficus and thickening of vascular tissue and roots. It is hard to imagine that it spent any significant amount of time in the ground during its history since it seems like the basal trunks would be more massively fused. So it would have had to spend the majority of that time in a restricted root environment being aggressively pruned essentially has a penzai or some type of garden/temple tree. To survive that length of time, it would seem that it had been in the possession of very wealthy family or families that could trace their roots across several dynasties or it resided in some type of temple or sacred space. Over 1000 yo in 1986 would put it a couple hundred years after the 1st graphical evidence of miniaturized tray landscapes in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tang_dynasty_penzai.JPG)

I would think that a tree of that age and presumable stature would have been drawn or pictured in early books and would have been reproduced or collected by the Crespi Museum. It also seems unlikely that a tree of that historical significance would be allowed to leave the country. I don't doubt that it could be a few hundred years old as an organism and maintained as a cultivated tree for several generations as it suggested. But there is a giant difference between that and over 1000 years old!

When you click the picture on the OP link it gives you the below older picture. Searching the "Wayback Machine" internet archives gives a the bottom picture which is on their website as far back as the year 2000. The story goes that it was acquired in 1986, so one of these might be the oldest the photo in its current location. Given the overgrown nature of the black and white pic, I thought it could be the older image of its first arrival at the museum. The bottom color image appears to gaps in the fused roots that don't appear in the b&w image, but that could be lighting or angle. The b&w image also appears to have more skinny aerial roots that might have fused or been removed in later pictures. It doesn't seem like it's current display space would have the humidity required to generate aerial roots since it picured in a room with glass museum display cases.

Just my 2 cents

View attachment 437324

https://www.crespibonsai.com/upload/steasycontent/ficus-euroflora.jpg

View attachment 437325

Bonsai

CRESPI BONSAI - rare trees, bonsai accessories and complements, bonsai care, bonsai courses and the bonsai university, the greatest bonsai museum in Europe, bonsai books and bonsai literature, bonsai gifts, ...this and even more in the Crespi Bonsai Web Site

www.crespibonsai.it

View attachment 437327

Crespi Bonsai Museum

The first permanent bonsai museum

www.crespibonsai.com

I agree with all of that. One additional head-scratcher is the Cultural Revolution in China in the 60's and 70's. During that period, bonsai or pensai or penjing were not appreciated and destroyed. They were not deemed to be a part of modern China. Can't imagine a tree with this heritage (which would be inextricably linked to China's imperial past) and sheer size would have survived that period.

If it did survive all that upheaval, that would indeed be a story worth telling.

 

[Adair M]

Oh come on, @rockm! Of COURSE it’s a 1000 year old bonsai! That’s what the little man in the white van on the side of the road told them! And he would know… after all, he started it from seed!

 

[thomas22]

This Bonsai Empire article has it as the oldest along with 2nd thru 5th. All really nice trees.

Top 5: Oldest Bonsai trees - Bonsai Empire

Bonsai trees, if well kept, can grow very old - some trees in Japan are over 800 year old!

www.bonsaiempire.com

 

[rockm]

This Bonsai Empire article has it as the oldest along with 2nd thru 5th. All really nice trees.

Top 5: Oldest Bonsai trees - Bonsai Empire

Bonsai trees, if well kept, can grow very old - some trees in Japan are over 800 year old!

www.bonsaiempire.com

That's kind of my point. The caption says "reported to be." No backstory, no evidence... That report is the museum's website. It's listed in several articles online as "the oldest" usually accompanied by the same language as the museum . Nice tree, sure, but oldest...???

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

That's kind of my point. The caption says "reported to be." No backstory, no evidence... That report is the museum's website. It's listed in several articles online as "the oldest" usually accompanied by the same language as the museum . Nice tree, sure, but oldest...???

Well if they start publishing photos of the tree from 1000 years ago, I’d get suspicious.

 

[rockm]

Yeah. Which is why I really question the accuracy of that claim. I highly doubt anyone was actually doing bonsai 1,000 years ago, much less with a ficus in China. Having seen the post here on Vietnamese bonsai with those huge nursery ficus bonsai, can't help but wonder whether that is the true origin of this tree.

Crazy Ficus nursery

I think they are in China

www.bonsainut.com

A bit of research shows that bonsai WAS being practiced in China at the time. The Song Dynasty would be 1,000 years ago. There are paintings of bonsai from the period, however, those "bonsai" are mostly what we call Penjing--emphasizing rocks and landscapes, as well as grasses and perennial plants. Conifers and temperate zone plants were most common. Tropical trees like ficus notsomuch...

https://inf.news/en/home/e35f6a886c261f19a0ca07e92ee8f63d.html

 

[Haines' Trees]

1000 years is quite a crazy amount of time, especially to be kept as a bonsai that long. The lack of detailed history is sketchy… I’m sure it’s hundreds of hundreds of years for sure.

I was at the Chicago Botanical Gardens for the Midwest Bonsai Society show last weekend and saw this tree


No doubt another oldie, 600-1000 is a big range. Since there was a big show happening there was a curator (I assume) who walked around and explained the history of the trees. This stunted tree was collected from a stand of trees in the Rockies that is allegedly hundreds and hundreds of years old. This tree has been in training for maybe 50 years.

At the end of the day, none of us were around even 100 years ago, so these ages could all be complete heresy

 

[rockm]

1000 years is quite a crazy amount of time, especially to be kept as a bonsai that long. The lack of detailed history is sketchy… I’m sure it’s hundreds of hundreds of years for sure.

I was at the Chicago Botanical Gardens for the Midwest Bonsai Society show last weekend and saw this tree
View attachment 437448
View attachment 437449
No doubt another oldie, 600-1000 is a big range. Since there was a big show happening there was a curator (I assume) who walked around and explained the history of the trees. This stunted tree was collected from a stand of trees in the Rockies that is allegedly hundreds and hundreds of years old. This tree has been in training for maybe 50 years.

At the end of the day, none of us were around even 100 years ago, so these ages could all be complete heresy

I highly doubt that ficus is "hundreds" of years old. I'd guess it's less than 125 (charitably)

Many Bonsai have two ages, generally--one is their actual age as a landscape or wild tree, the other is their time as a bonsai "in captivity" in a container.

I personally have a live oak that is over 260 years old (I've counted the growth rings in an old exposed primary root. That's the total I came up with before the rings got too tight to count visually). The tree was collected 30 years ago and has been in bonsai training since then.

It's introduction to bonsai cultivation doesn't change the fact that the OLDEST PARTS of the tree are indeed over 250 years old. 80 percent of the trunk and nebari--branches and apex are not as old since they have been regrown.

That pre-collection age is NOT what is being claimed with the ficus. It is "reported" to have been IN A CONTAINER AS A BONSAI for 1,000 years...

 

[penumbra]

I also doubt these claims about the ficus, but as a matter of history, culture of potted trees was well in its hey day by the Song Dynasty. There is evidence that it dated to at least the Han Dynasty.
Don't ask where I found this because I have forgotten more about Chinese History than most people will ever know.

 

[Cajunrider]

I highly doubt that ficus is "hundreds" of years old. I'd guess it's less than 125 (charitably)

Many Bonsai have two ages, generally--one is their actual age as a landscape or wild tree, the other is their time as a bonsai "in captivity" in a container.

I personally have a live oak that is over 260 years old (I've counted the growth rings in an old exposed primary root. That's the total I came up with before the rings got too tight to count visually). The tree was collected 30 years ago and has been in bonsai training since then.

It's introduction to bonsai cultivation doesn't change the fact that the OLDEST PARTS of the tree are indeed over 250 years old. 80 percent of the trunk and nebari--branches and apex are not as old since they have been regrown.

That pre-collection age is NOT what is being claimed with the ficus. It is "reported" to have been IN A CONTAINER AS A BONSAI for 1,000 years...

There is a huge tendency for inflated claim so of course we should all be skeptical.
It is not uncommon in Asia for trees like this to be kept in containers for generations. That said, such trees can only be kept by prominent families that have the wherewithal to afford the care. As with prominent families, there should be family tree hand written books that account for things in the families through the generations. One can argue that, through war and revolutions, those books would be destroyed. However, if the tree can be kept, so can the books be. In Asian families, it is the duty of the descendants to recreate the books if they are destroyed. With such a prominent tree, surely the family book of the family of owners will mention it. Unless they can provide such proof, I am skeptical. Without evidence, we are down to botanical and visual evidence. I am sure there are experts out there that can give a good estimate of the tree age and how long it has been trained.

 

[rockm]

There is a huge tendency for inflated claim so of course we should all be skeptical.
It is not uncommon in Asia for trees like this to be kept in containers for generations. That said, such trees can only be kept by prominent families that have the wherewithal to afford the care. As with prominent families, there should be family tree hand written books that account for things in the families through the generations. One can argue that, through war and revolutions, those books would be destroyed. However, if the tree can be kept, so can the books be. In Asian families, it is the duty of the descendants to recreate the books if they are destroyed. With such a prominent tree, surely the family book of the family of owners will mention it. Unless they can provide such proof, I am skeptical. Without evidence, we are down to botanical and visual evidence. I am sure there are experts out there that can give a good estimate of the tree age and how long it has been trained.

I get that trees are kept in containers for generations. 1,000 years is roughly 40 generations. That's "great" grandmother 40 times over. Tracing the lineage of a plant, much less, a family, over that time is hardly going to be pinpoint accurate.

What's more likely--a sharp salesperson in China 40 years ago taking advantage of a less-than-knowledgeable western buyer who is enthralled by the "history" of something? Or an actual 1,000 year-old bonsai passed down through 40 generations, each spanning decades and decades? And if the tree was so important as to be held onto through repeated revolutions, uprisings, insurgencies, world wars, occupations, natural disasters, the onslaught of communism why sell its suddenly to some rando in Italy in the 1980's?

 

[Cajunrider]

I get that trees are kept in containers for generations. 1,000 years is roughly 40 generations. That's "great" grandmother 40 times over. Tracing the lineage of a plant, much less, a family, over that time is hardly going to be pinpoint accurate.

What's more likely--a sharp salesperson in China 40 years ago taking advantage of a less-than-knowledgeable western buyer who is enthralled by the "history" of something? Or an actual 1,000 year-old bonsai passed down through 40 generations, each spanning decades and decades? And if the tree was so important as to be held onto through repeated revolutions, uprisings, insurgencies, world wars, occupations, natural disasters, the onslaught of communism why sell its suddenly to some rando in Italy in the 1980's?

Hence my skepticism that the particular tree is that old and being trained that long. A tree that well kept through the generations will be kept by that family. They will not likely give it up unless forced by someone else.
In my family book, there is a mention of a tree kept for 6 generations then it was lost in a flood. Had we been able to hang on, we wouldn't have sold it for any price, least of all by superstitious Asians who believe in spirits of ancestors.

 

[Adair M]

What’s sticking about this bonsai is, of course, it’s size. But, if you google, “huge Vietnamese bonsai”, and look at the Images, you will see dozens of similar sized ones, in a similar style. I seriously doubt they are all over 1000 years old!

 

[Cajunrider]

What’s sticking about this bonsai is, of course, it’s size. But, if you google, “huge Vietnamese bonsai”, and look at the Images, you will see dozens of similar sized ones, in a similar style. I seriously doubt they are all over 1000 years old!

All the huge ones that I actually saw when I was living there was 300 years at the most. Most of them, including the huge ones, are less than 200 years old. In the tropical climate ficus grows really really fast.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Now this is what it should look like after 1000 years!

 

[penumbra]

Now this is what it should look like after 1000 years!

View attachment 437479

I never get tired on looking at these picts. I hope to someday make a small pottery ruins to train a ficus over. These massive roots really make the ruins look like a toy.