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Venerable Bonsai White Pine Tended to Every Day since 162508-06-15 | News

Venerable Bonsai White Pine
Tended to Every Day since 1625

The bonsai white pine was among the plants donated to the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. in 1976 by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki to commemorate the U.S. Bicentennial. The little pine has an 18" diameter trunk, but more impressively, survived the Hiroshima nuclear blast.

The Dutch founded Fort Amsterdam in New Amsterdam (southern tip of Manhattan Island) in 1625. The date is considered the founding of New York City.

This historical reference is made for perspective only. That same year in Japan, a white pine planting (sai) was placed in a bon (a tray or low-sided pot). This very same bonsai white pine has been tended to every day since 1625, and today can be seen in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum courtyard of the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. Bonsai master Masaru Yamaki donated the tree to the arboretum in 1976.

"Bonsai" refers not to a type of tree, but how the tree is cared for. Nearly any woody-stemmed tree or shrub that produces branches can be bonsai, as long as it is cultivated to remain small through pot confinement and crown and root pruning.

Image all this little tree has "seen" over the centuries. One of those days was particularly eventful. The pine was in a walled nursery in Hiroshima, Japan when the first atomic bomb was dropped. The date was Aug. 6, 1945; the plant was about two miles from the detonation.

Today, 39 years after its arrival at the National Arboretum, and nearing the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the 390-year-old tree is being honored.