From the Vault: The Bonsai Tree

to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're gonna be talking about Bond Side Now, Brob, I hope you don't mind if I share a bit of trivia about you with the listeners. I don't know if you've ever made clear on this show before, but you are a very caring plant keeper. You've for a long time I am at work, had a wonderful little flower on your desk, and often, like if you're out of town, you would ask me to drop an ice cube on it, which

I think I always remembered to do whenever you asked me. Um, but but yeah, I appreciate the care and tenderness you show for the plant kingdom. Well, Um, I appreciate that, Joe. I guess you could also say I just I managed not to kill an orchid, uh that that I was charged with. Um it was my my father in law's orchid. And yeah, I say so. I lived on my desk at work there, and it would have an ice cube every now and then to keep it hydrated. And I would ask you or sometimes a uh Scott who sat

next to me, to to do it. Um, And uh, yeah, I managed not to kill it. And there is something kind of satisfying about having this kind of like long term relationship with a plant. This this nurturing, you know, even if it's very slight nurturing and not like a you know, not a real high maintenance plant. Um. You know, it seems like a pretty sturdy speed sees that I had grown there and now it's growing in my bathroom,

uh since I'm not in office anymore. But yeah, it's it is very very satisfying to to be involved in a in a nurturing relationship with a plant like that, just as it is so frustrating and potentially depressing to have the opposite relationship with the plant. You know, I think we've all had that as well, where like, oh my gosh, I cannot keep this thing alive, this plant just wants to die or I am just horrible at it. Now.

One thing you may not have considered, and I apologize if this is an overly intimate thought, but whenever you have a plant growing in a bathroom, and we have plants growing in our bathrooms, you have to assume that they are making their cells as they continue to photosynthesize from the lights over the sink. They are making their cells out of some percentage of carbon that comes out of your like toilet emissions and so forth, probably, right, I guess. So, I mean that's I mean, that's I

guess that's good. Right, You're you're exposing them to to more of the natural world even though they're an indoor plant. Yeah, I never thought about that before. Um well, I mean, so if it's mainly carbon dioxide, I assume it's probably more what you're breathing out. But I don't know. Farts

probably have some CO two content, right I guess. But then again, if it's if it's farts the plants want, then they really want a fully packed office environment again, right, I mean, I mean there's I can't possibly offer it the the you know, the kind of volume it was probably accustomed to. Well, so I'm excited to talk about bondside today. I have never myself taken care of a bonsai tree. I have, uh, I have tried to. I guess I don't know if this was this would count.

I have tried to take care of a sort of potted tree of sorts. I don't know if it would actually count as bonsai. But I failed. I just I killed it. And that's why I'm partially envious of of the dedicated and regular care that you always showed to your orchid. Well, I would say that, you know, well, whatever, however you classify that care, Bonds I certainly on a on an entirely different level. It is up on the

top of the mountain. We're talking about the pinnacle of of caring for a plant, and uh, yeah, this is this is one. This is an episode I've wanted to do for a while. I think my experience with Bonds I have never owned a bonds I or cared for a bonsai, but my experience with him with them is probably similar to a lot of people's out there. My first exposure was almost certainly watching the karate kid as a child. Uh, and seeing that, oh Mr Miyagi has

has bonsai plants, those are neat uh. And then maybe I don't know, maybe they popped up on a reading rainbow or something at some point I don't recall. But then much much later, uh, I you know, I was, I was traveling and I was visiting, but believe one place in San Francisco, in another place in San Diego where I got to see a multitude of bonsai plants, uh with you know, identification information as well as age.

And it was just really amazing to behold these things, these these ancient trees that that you feel should be gi panic, but they are in miniature and they are alive, and they are just meticulously cared for and crafted. Uh. And yeah there's this there's this kind of magical aura to them and this and this age, this kind of condensed age, you know. Um, so they're they're really special

to just behold. And then when you read a little bit about caring for them, Yeah, it also Uh that just adds to your level of appreciation when you read about the culture involved in it. And uh. And so yeah, I wanted to do an episode on this for a while, and then I've kind of forgotten about it. I think we pitched it as part of a deal with a UM, a Japanese automobile company that was gonna advertise for this, and and then that didn't happen. I forgot about it.

But then I ended up watching Cobra Kai on Netflix, which also has the Bonsai trees in it, and uh, and I was reminded, Oh, yeah, we we should do a bonsaie episode. Got bonds I bouncing around in the brain. Okay, so maybe you can answer a question that I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, What is it? What makes the strict definition of a Bondsai tree? What makes

a bonds I tree different than any potted plant. Well, um, based on my understanding of it, I would say that the big thing to do is you sort of have to back up and think about it not just as caring for a tree and growing for a tree and nurturing a tree, but it's also just it's also steeped in just like the basics of art and design, you know, because art in design, you know, very often sent around the manipulation of the natural world or natural resources into

some form that is esthetically pleasing and perhaps even philosophical or theologically engaging as well. You know, we take stone and we craft into the likeness of a human or some sort of humanoid figure of myth or legend. Trees are cut down in hun and then the raw material is carved into all manner of forms and functions. But as for the control of living plants, that brings us, of course to agriculture and cultivation. Um and and human

works are pretty grand in this realm as well. I mean, you look at what we have done for generations and generations with agriculture and cultivation. But the bonds depening bonds eye tree. It is the pinnacle of plant cultivation. Uh And and I think that Brad Dunning described this exceptionally well for the New York Times back in two thousand two. Uh they wrote, quote, but it's more than just an issue of control, simple for it simply for the sake

of control. As nature spins wildly downward, there is an example of man controlling, conquering, nurturing, and respecting nature on an extremely uh reverential level. By constantly thwarting the growth of new saplings. The Bonsai gardener through pinching cutting and splitting new growth forces the tree's branches to strain in any direction to succeed. With additional help from restraining wires, the tree is manipulated into prematurely aged shape over time.

Sometimes a lot of time. Prize specimens can be several hundred years old. So bonds is not just a potted plant, but it's a tree that's grown in a confined environment with this spirit of artistic shaping. Yes, yeah, and uh and and along and you know, certain traditional like you get into like what kind of pot is used, etcetera.

And then it of also noted what species is used. Uh, you know, as as is often the case with with this particularly you know, Japanese artistry, there are a lot of very particular details in the cultivation and it you know, it comes down to things like what are their traditional shears that one should use, what are the best shears? Uh,

that sort of thing. Um. Another thing that's interesting about bonsai trees to me, and I think this comes through through all this pruning and shaping and everything, is that, Um, a bonsai tree does not just look like a sapling or like a young tree. There is a particular style of miniaturization that comes about through the long sustained care of this this small plant, which is that it is a tiny version of a tree that looks like a shrunken adult version of the same tree, a round other

than just a sapling or young growth. Does that make sense? Yeah? And exactly that they're like this ancient dwarf and uh and it and it a lot of the reasons that this is attractive to us. I feel like they almost deny or that they defy rather um, you know, easy explanation. You know, there's something obviously about the world at large made small that we're always fascinated. And you know, we love miniatures, be it, you know, miniature miniature soldiers, miniature tanks,

miniature cities, maps, etcetera. Uh. And in fact, one of the the the origin stories for the Bonsai trees that will touch on has to do with that, like the idea of like make make the world at large small enough for me to behold it. Uh. But then also there is something too about like the ancient made small like it it reminds me of so many myths of like tiny little old men, you know, that have some

sort of magical powers, you know, little folks. Yeah. Yeah, And there's something of the of the fairy world, you know, in that that you know, non culturally distinct manner to the bonds eye tree. Now, um, there are of course true bonds eyes created in accordance with the Japanese tradition. Uh. And there are various tears that follow that fall below the standard, with one of the most notorious being the sort of bonds eye that sometimes is sold at malls,

grocery stores and street fairs. And these, according to Stephen Or in New York Times Garden Q and A in two thousand nine, are a curse upon the name of bonds ie. Uh. These are typically young rooted juniper tree cuttings in a decorative pot. Uh. So not true bonds eyes. Will get into what true bonds I really consists of in a bit. But people will buy these, they think they have a bonds eye. It looks neat, they bring it home, and then they're devastated when it dies in

a few months. So not a not an ancient dwarf tree or something that will become an ancient dwarf tree, but just a short lived trick. And this made me think of Cobra Kai actually because in the TV show UM Ralph Macchio's character, uh, you know from the first film, is now a a car dealer and he has a car dealers shop, and part of his whole gimmick in the show is when you buy a car, you also

get this little bonds eye plant that he prepares. And I guess it's supposed to you know, he's he's very meticulous character and he's all into the tradition, So I guess it's supposed to be the case that these are legitimate bonds eye trees that he's handing out to customers.

But it makes me wonder how many. I mean, yeah, he sells nice cars, but I wonder it does the cynical side of me um leaning into sort of the sort of the cynical notes to that character in that show, is like, I wonder if these are just the cheap roadside bonds eyes that he's handing out. You know, that would be very car dealery. But you can always blame user error, right, You can always just say like, I must not have taken care of it, right, Yeah, better

bring it back into the shop. We'll apply that undercoating the true code. Yeah, you're gonna want that true code on your bonds. Eye. Yeah. Uh, it's a fun show. Um. Well yeah, let's well, let's keep going talking about bonds eyes. Then. So at the heart of the bonsai practice is just pure artistic manipulation of the tree's growth. Trees, as you've probably notice, everyone grow in accordance to their genes, but

also in accordance to their surroundings. So this means the dictates of water, soil, and sun, various other limiting factors in their immediate surroundings as well, such as other trees, human structures, power lines. Uh. You know, as I think we all can attest to, you can you can see some pretty wonky trees out in the world, out in the forest in urban environments, you know, where they do the best they can with the with the constraints that

are there. Um. And indeed they can produce natural examples of what you can at least roughly classify as a bonsai tree. For instance, if you were to travel down to a place called Tate's Hell and uh, Tate's Hell State Forest near Tallahassee, Florida, and I have to say I have driven through it. I can't say I've actually visited that. I did drive through it. Uh, there there is a forest apparently of miniature cypress trees hundreds of

years old, covering acres and none more than fifteen feet tall. Which, granted, that's far bigger than what you might think of as the bonds I tree, a true bonds I tree, um. But bear in mind that cypress trees of this variety and age can reach heights of a hundred and fifty feet. Yes, old cypress trees can can be towering, and so there are special conditions at work that keep this ancient forest as short as it is. I was reading that most of these trees are between um like six and fifteen

feet at maturity. I think a lot of them around ten feet or so. Uh, and it's very strange looking. I found one picture that's like an aerial shot of this dwarf cypress forest that is surrounded by many other trees. I think the story goes that at some point there was a company that was harvesting a lot of the trees from the area. I think maybe for logging or

maybe to clear land for something. But um, but when they the dwarf cypress forests, they realized that that they that this was something unusual and worth preserving, so they they stopped a lot of their their shaping of the land at the edge of this thing, and it did end up getting preserved when the state bought it and turned it into a state forest. But a sidebar on Tate's Hell, because I had to know what was up with that name, and I looked into it, and I

actually was rewarded with some very excellent Florida swamp lore. Alright, let's have it. Well, So I was reading about it in this book called Florida Lore by Karen Schnuir Neil published in tween, and she points out, first of all, there is a song by the old Florida folk singer Will McLean about tates Hell, and it it tells the same story as the legend that I'm about to explain.

But it's also one of those old style folk songs that starts with a section that is not singing, but it's kind of rapping, I don't know exactly what you call it, like fast rhythmic rhyming talking before the tune kicks in where he says, like, listen, good people to a story I'll tell of a great swamp in Florida place called Tate's Hell. Yeah, yeah, it's sort of like the pre folk song ramble. Sometimes I guess it rhymes, oftentimes it does not, but you hear it from from

a number of practitioners of the craft. I know phil Oaks would do it a lot, you know, where he's kind of working up. He's like, all right, I listening this tune and I got a little and sometimes it's even like a bit. It's almost like a little comedy bit and I guess, I guess off, yeah, yeah, and I guess that's what uh oh, what's their name? Is kind of leaned into this a lot and their act. Uh the famous folk comedy duo Oh, I can't think

of their names offhand. Um, I don't know. I don't know who one of them is, Bob, one of them has a beard, soft spoken Garfunkel and notes no it's not Garfunkle notes though, I think they probably have like more of a modern version of this, and it's it's not the Flight of the Concords. Those are the two folk comedy duos I know. These are the one They were on TV all the time. Um oh man um Smothers Brothers, the Smothers brothers. I don't know why I was.

I was trying. Yeah, Well, will McLean tells us that Tate's Hell is a place where the bull gators beller and the panthers squall. Now, this is a place that should be shunned by all. And so the legend goes like this, But this is the version that I was reading in the book by um by Neil, not by not in will McLean's song, though they're similar. The legend goes that in the year eighteen there was a homesteader named CB Tate who had staked a claim for a

ranch in the Panhandle of Florida. And that's where Tate's Hell is. It's up in the Panhandle. It's uh, I think it's near Wacola Springs, isn't it. Um Perhaps, I mean, certainly I've been to Wacola or Waccola. I'm not sure exactly what the preferred pronunciation there is. Uh. Yeah, I've been there, but I guess I don't remember how I even came through Tate's Hell. It was just we were on the way to somewhere else and we had to pass through it. Well, it's near a place the is

now called Sumatra, Florida. It's an unincorporated community about thirty miles from the city of Carabelle. And the context for this is that there was the Homestead Act of eighteen sixty two, which meant that settlers could get a grant of supposedly free land from the government if they would agree to stay there and develop it for five years. And cbtit is one of these homesteaders. So he's got a he's got a ranch or a farm that he's trying to run, and one morning he discovers that a

panther has mauled several of his cows. So he sets off in the forest with his hunting dogs and the implements of death, as Will McLean says, an old long tom shotgun and a sharp barlow knife. That panther would sure have the chase of his life. And so Tate's dogs they get the scent on the panther and they take off after it, but Tate himself falls behind and

he gets separated from his hunting dogs. Unfortunately, as we've discussed in the podcast last October, when there is no visible landmark to navigate by, it's surprisingly easy to get lost in the woods, and that appears to be what happens here. He's wandering in the swampy forest and he gets lost and at some point he gets bitten by

a snake and he loses his gun. And to read from Karen schnurneil here quote, for seven days and nights he roamed the ancient trees in ominous swampland, more often than not, dazed with hunger and heat, forced to live on nothing but roots and muddy water. To make matters worse, the mosquitoes swarmed around him until every inch of his body was bitten. That's worse than the snake bite to me. Yeah. Uh. And the story says that over the course of the

week that he was lost, his hair turned white. But then after seven days, just when he was convinced he was going to die, Tate ran into a couple of a couple of hunters from Carabelle, and they asked him who are you and where do you come from? And he says, my name is CB Tate, and I come from Hell. Probably not exactly true, but it is a

good story. But anyway, if the story were true, it's possible that many of the cypress trees that are still no more than ten or fifteen feet tall today in the cypress forest of Tate's Hell would have been there to watch Cbta get snake bit, you know, a middle of the bull gator bellers. Because again a lot of these these trees are are quite old there, you know, hundreds of years old, even though they're still so small.

And I was reading a post about the dwarf cypress forest on the blog of a local conservation organization called the Appalachicola River Keeper, and the author of this blog post writes that quote, these dwarf pond cypress trees may have become stunted due to a hard layer of clay that prevents roots from growing deeper, similar to planting a tree in a bond said pot. So that's one possibility. Another they go on. Also, the soil is low and nutrients,

as evidenced by the carnivorous plants in the area. You can also find dwarf cypress trees near the picture plant Boggs north of Sumatra, so there may be some correlation. Now, remember we've discussed carnivorous plants on the show before. The reason that carnivorous plants eat insects, or at least most carnivorous plants, I would assume all uh, the reason they eat insects is not the same as the main reason

that we would eat plants or animals. You know, we need to eat things to get you know, protein and energy. Plants photosynthesized sunlight to get the energy they need to live. So carnivorous plants eat for specific nutrients that are lacking in barren and often swampy soil. What other plants would get from the soil around them, carnivorous plants get from insects. And in human terms, when plants eat an insect there it's not like devouring a loaf of bread. It's like

they're taking their vitamins. So, according to this source, at least that same type of nutrient poor soil could be one thing preventing the cypress trees from growing taller. Or it could be a hard layer of sediment that blocks root growth, which in turn shapes the body of the tree as a whole, which is very much what happens when you plant a tree in a pot. And this also ties into something else interesting that I was reading that that I guess I'll come back to in a

few minutes. But yeah, so bonsai trees are there, their growth is constrained by several factors, but one of the main ones being the pot that they're confined to help shape the not just where the roots go, but the the overall shape of the tree as a whole. That's interest. Yeah, that and that ties directly into what we're talking about with the with the bonsai. Um. Now, I will say that as far as Tate's Helle goes, I do remember

how I wound up there. I was midway upon the journey of our life, and I found myself within a forest dart uh for the far straightforward pathway had been lost. Uh oh and what and you ran into three beasts, one of which was a panther ye yeah, maybe another was a bull gator. Yeah. And then Virgil jumped out and there was a big action scene. He defeated them, and then we yeah, then we went into Tate's hell Floridian Virgil though Poppy Satan Leppie. Yeah. Alright, so yeah,

back the bonds eyes here bonsai proper. So yeah, in need. Some of the models for bonsai trees are actually trees found growing in the natural environment, uh, particularly growing over water or on the sides of mountains, you know, in the rocky crags, forced by their inform environment into dwarf

forms like we're talking about here. So again, the bonsai treatment is trying to do is doing what nature does in constraining the growth of a tree, but then taking it to the next level, you know, involving just absolute artistic manipulation of the form. Bonsai means roughly tree in a pot in Japanese. Uh. Specifically, we're talking plants grown in shallow containers and via the exact tenants of bonsai

pruning and training. So it's it's worth stressing that a bonsai is not genetically a dwarf plant, nor is it kept all three some sort of reginative torture or anything like that. No, it's these physical constraints we've been talking about, which as shown in one possible explanation of the dwarf Cyprus in in the swamp there that that can happen in nature. It happens, like you're saying, on cliff faces and other times, when the physical forces around a plant

shape its growth. Though, I do want to say, while bonsai trees are not not generally genetically dwarfed plants, the subject of actual genetic dwarf plant strains actually has a massive impact on the recent history of the world. This is something that is a fact that's actually little appreciated by many people, considering how consequential it has been in the world, and something that goes beyond the art and

esthetics of plant keeping. Dwarf plants and what are sometimes known as semi dwarf plants have played a shockingly powerful role in the economics and practicalities of food crops over the last I guess like sixty seventy years, so uh Dwarf or semi dwarfs strains of crop plants like wheat and rice especially have very much change the world, and if you want to learn more about this, you can

look up the Green Revolution. Basically, this refers to a suite of new technologies and techniques and agriculture, especially new dwarf strains of staple crops like wheat and rice that were developed and deployed throughout the nineteen fifties and sixties, and of course new agricultural techniques and transgenic plants and

things like that. Have lots of modern critics, but all of those criticisms considered, it is widely acknowledged that the Green Revolution played an unprecedented role in decreasing world hunger and has probably saved at least a billion human lives. Now you might immediately wonder why, like why would physically smaller strains of crop plants like wheat and rice actually make a difference. How could they? How could smaller plants

help save millions or billions of lives? Well, one paper I was looking at in the journal Plant Physiology had a good short summary of this in its background section. This was by any a Elias at All. It was published in and so they note that semi dwarf is um in plants results in a few things, one of the which is decreased lodging. Lodging is a term in agriculture where tall crop plants like wheat stalks can bend

over at the base. You've probably actually seen this before in wheat fields, where they just sort of like fold over into the ground, making the grain difficult to harvest. And the shorter stalks do this far less, but there's also just an increased yield of grain and improved harvest index. The harvest index is the percent of the above ground biomass represented by the harvest herble part of the plant.

In other words, like what percentage of the part of the plant that's above ground is actually grain and not just you know, unusable stalk or husk. But in addition to these enormously consequential changes in strains of cereal crops, the authors point out that semi dwarf is um has big benefits in fruit tree production. So, you know, tree trees that produce fruits like apples or peaches can have semi dwarf varieties that are that are very useful to farmers.

In certain cases, they might bear fruit earlier in the season, have higher yields of fruit. Um be easier to harvest because the fruit is just like closer to the grounds, so it's easier to pick um. But of course semi dwarf species play a big role in pure aesthetics to quote.

Semi dwarf woody species are also extensively used in ornamental horticulture, where they allow more compact forms to be fit into small areas around homes and on streets to reduce the need for pruning to avoid interference with structures and transmission lines. I've never considered that before. Yeah, I mean, you do hear about problems with with roots interfering with structures and

plumbing and so forth, So it makes sense. I am intimately familiar with that, as is anybody else out there who has ever had to replace a sewer line that was being traded by the roots of an ornamental plant. It's real, folks, The anguish is profound when when your toilets won't flush. But anyway, this paper in particular, that was just stuff that it talks about in its background section. The actual point of this paper is making the case for using semi dwarf strains of trees in forestry. Uh

the author's right quote. Although against the current orthodoxy of forest tree breeding, where height growth is emphasized. You know, usually you want trees to be tall, they say that semi dwarf is um might also have benefits for wood and biomass production. Such trees could be useful if they were less prone to wind throw due to their shorter,

stockier forms and expected greater allocation to roots. Reduced stature could also result in less bending and slanting of trunks in the face of wind and gravity on hill slopes, and thus reduced the extent of reaction would formation, which degrades the performance and value of solid wood and pulp products. Reduced height and increased allocation of growth to roots might enhance stress tolerance, soil nutrient uptake, bio remediation, and carbon sequestration. Um.

So again, this was published in twelve. I'm not sure how their argument about the use of dwarf strains in forestry holds up since then, but it's a really interesting idea to appreciate how much of a difference in the world has just been made by not just new agricultural techniques and irrigation and things like that, but just the introduction of smaller plants. It's literally changed human civilization, uh

and elsewhere. Just as one note, I read about some dwarf crops strains potentially being developed for use in space flight, which I thought was pretty funny. You can see it's interesting. Yeah, I remember getting into this. I don't know they were well you would classify as a dwarf plant. But I remember in our episode about tomatoes, we touched on tomato varieties that have been developed potentially for use in a low gravity environment. Yeah. Yeah, so it could be similar

things here. I imagine, not trees for forestry, but you know, food bearing plants I would assume. But but to bring things back to bons I again. As you emphasized earlier, with Bonsai, were generally talking about trees that are tiny by way of nurture, not nature right there, These are not genetically dwarf strains. There are. There are constraints imposed upon them by their their human cultivators that keep them

in this tiny shape. And one thing that's really interesting about plants is that it's striking how much nurture can look like nature when it comes to the plant kingdom. And this brings me to one last thing I wanted to talk about briefly. It was a really interesting essay

I was reading, uh published an Eon magazine. It was called Rooted from October twenty nineteen, and it's about the concept of of how trees embody history, that that time is really shown through a tree and uh it was written by Alia Nasser, who is a lecturer and philosophy at the University of Sydney, and by Margaret M. Barber, who is a professor of plant physiology at the at the University of Sydney. And so I just want to

read a quote from their their article here. While all living beings carry their past with them into their present and future selves, Trees embody their history in a way that is far more explicit and with greater detail and visibility than any other living being. The history of any particular tree is not hidden in an interior part, nor is it found in only one of its parts. As such, trees call attention to the historicity of life, demanding that we think of life not as static and machine like,

but as a dynamic context. Sensitive and plastic trees are not only embodied recorders of their history, but also shape shifters, whose structure transforms in relation to their environment. Put simply,

trees express their context in their physical warm. Trees of the same species can look significantly different depending on their growth environment, and even within an individual tree, the leaves at the shady bottom of the canopy are anatomically different, meaning larger and thinner from those at the top, smaller and thicker. When densely planted, trees grow long, straight trunks and small canopies, but when planted in a grass field

that grow shorter stems and broad crowns. The crown of a solitary oak spreads out in all directions, eventually achieving a dome shape, while an oak growing in a forest develops a small crown and its growth is patterned on the growth of surrounding trees, or think of a bond

said tree in contrast to its full size sibling. Trees are so adaptive to their surroundings that a human equivalent to tree plasticity would be certain people growing large webbed feet like diving flippers simply because they swim a lot. And they go on to point out other examples of this that, uh this actually would tie back into the dwarf cypress example from Tate's Hell that the soil quality,

for example, can shape a tree. And uh so all these different features of the natural environment come through in the shape and form and physiology of a tree that could start genetically identical but end up looking so far apart they would be unrecognizable. Wow. I I really love that the idea of the especially the way time is wound up in a tree, because that does seem to be a huge part of of Bonsai tree tradition, because these are things that that very often outlive the individual

who is caring for them. You know, it's it's a thing that has to be passed on. It is that they're sometimes described as being like children, you know, Um, and I was thinking about this, especially when I watched a Great Big Story video about bonsai shares. Great Big Story is sadly funk now. But they before they went out, they made a whole bunch of videos about various various cultural things and practices, and a number of these relate

to Japanese cultural um things and topics. But there's one titled making thirty five thousand dollar Bonsaie Scissors that I recommend checking out, and it's about this, uh, this guy who is the the Saska brand of of bonsaie scissors, which I think are the only traditional bonsaie scissors uh that are still created in um in Japan. And you can look them up. Look look this uh this guy up online. It's it's like s a s u k e um bonsai shears or look up the video and

it's it's really insightful. But in this particular video, you have this this older Japanese man talking about the crafting of the scissors and how long it takes. You know, like you'll get in, someone will put in a request, You'll be like, okay, I need I need a half a year or so to uh to figure out what kind of shears to make for you, you know, and then he's making it for somebody who is a bonds uh practition or somebody who's deeply immersed in the culture.

And you get the sense of human being sort of living to a certain extent too, as to as to whatever extent is possible for a human being to live on the time scale of the trees they care for, you know. Uh. And it's really really kind of beautiful and does get into, I guess, the the meditative aspects

of bonsai tree care. I like the idea that a lot of these sasuke shears they've got kind of like, at least the ones I was looking at online often have like these long roping kind of handles instead of just the normal functional sort of like grippy handles of garden shears you buy it lows, and the long looping handles actually make it look like it's kind of made out of plant growth, you know, it's like the their roots in your fingers. Yeah. Yeah, they're very they're beautiful

to behold. Uh, you have these big looping handles, and and of course part of it, too, I'm to understand, is that you want very precise, very sharp shears because the cleaner cut that you get, the healthier it is for the organism. Oh yeah, that makes sense. You want to you wanna like sheer very cleanly instead of crushing, right. Yeah, And so that's one of the reasons you tend to see if not sheers like this, then at least some

other fancy variety of sheers. You know, You're not just getting in there with your old rusty garden pruners and chopping away, you know, you want something very precise. Uh. And then also I think it's one of those situations where the tools are part of the practice, you know. Um. But as far as the organism goes, various tree species can be bonds eye trees. But there are essentially two broad categories here, um, indoor and outdoor. Though uh this was in the writing of of Or, who did that

piece for New York Times which I mentioned earlier. I will point out that I have seen other people sort of shy away from the idea of indoor bonds I and it seemed to imply that true bonds I are are all outdoor bonds. I. So I'm not sure where

to land on that. But or at any rate, So okay, first of all, you have outdoor bonds ie to do best in temperate regions featuring species such as pine cedar, ginko, Japanese maple, horn beam, and juniper, and they often require a cool dormant period like a you know, winter period, and species like the juniper will require overwintering, often in

a greenhouse or a sunroom. And then if you're dealing with indoor bonds eye according to Or, these are typically tropical and subtropical plant plants such as uh Ficus, uming rivia um potocarpus, and dwarf jade. And Or writes that these require something similar to normal indoor house plant care, but they also require you know, of course all the various aspects of bonsai, uh pruning, etcetera. But also they

require more watering due to those shallow pots. Well, so we've discussed how the shallow pots can help shelter shape the body of the tree, But obviously another major feature is what comes in with the pruning itself. So like, what is the process us of this ongoing care? Okay, so some of these will be obvious to folks who engage in any level of like treat care and outdoor stuff,

but but other stuff is more specific to bonds. I so, first of all, trimming is the removal of outer branch tips, while pruning is the specific removal of individual branches, stems, or even parts of the trunk. On top of that you have things like wiring and clamping, and this is a way to physically guide the growth and shape of the tree via physical constraints. On top of this, grafting is also used. Um as are that you can also do a certain amount of defoliation, you know, the removal

of of leaves and then deadwood. Bonds Ie techniques involved the creation, shaping, and preservation of dead wood on a living bond's eye tree to enhance this sense of age. Oh yes, I I so, I've seen bonsai trees like this, I think. And there's a very particular aesthetic that is that actually exists in the natural world, not just in in human horticulture that that is mimicking that I find

very beautiful. I think a lot of other people do too, and I wonder why exactly it is, but it's the Uh, it's the aesthetic you see in the natural growth of bristle cone pine trees, where they often have the appearance of a live tree growing on or within this ancient warped, twirling piece of dead wood. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. Can picture in my head. Yeah, And there

is something just intrinsically attractive about it. I don't know, it's it doesn't apply to um animals, Like the idea of like a human coming up dressed in bones generally not as attractive. But but but this is this is bristle cone pines, by the way, are they're particularly known I think for for achieving tremendous ages, Like they get

really really old. There are some of the oldest living organisms, and and they really do look like it because again, yeah, you can see like um, there will be parts of a tree that are producing foliage, so there's still green, they're still growing, you know, they're still producing new growth seasonally,

I guess. But down below that it will just be what looks like a ten million year old skeleton that's got these like lollipop twirls of color in it or like a sorry, like a peppermint twist type of color, and the branches or these snaking witch fingers without any leaves. H it's very very cool. So if you're not familiar with bristle cone pines. Look them up. Now. Another thing I want to drive them about the bond's eyes again.

The the upkeep and care of a bond's I are are in their their own way, like a delicate art form. I was reading a piece in the New York Times by Makiko in a way and Daniel Victor Um. Apparently New York Times is just prime reporting uh source for Bonsai. Uh. But they this is an article about a story that was making the rounds at the time. In um this was bonds I are like our children. Couple pleads for

return of stolen trees. Uh. And this one had to do with a four year old bonds e that had been stolen that was worth an estimated ninety dollars uh. The theft was again covered by a number of different news sources at the time, Bonds I can fetch a hefty price on the black market. Sadly, I didn't run across any reporting about this tree being recovered. I mean maybe it did, and that just didn't make a snazzy

news story for most sources. UM. But one of the things that they pointed out is that, like if you were to steal a m high value bonds I tree like this, if you didn't know how to care for it, Uh, if you didn't know the particular things you needed to do, it could die within a week, you know. So there's a there's a delicacy to these um these organisms as well.

But I'm also interested in the statement of these people saying that the bonds are like our children, because it I mean, you can totally see how that would be the case, that it's not just like somebody stole any other high value item within a home. I don't know, you know, an expensive painting or something. It is in some ways like a child. I mean obviously not that you know, and it doesn't have a brain or anything,

but it does require care. Well, I like the idea of comparing it to something like a painting, because yeah, painting certainly requires a certain amount of care and any

key an occasionally occasionally restoration. But there is and but there is I guess when it comes to like the bonds, eye tree and the painting, like, yeah, there's probably a tipping point with the painting if it's degraded and it's not cared for, you know, a point past which you cannot be brought back in a meaningful way, but with a bonds eye tree, Like, there's definitely that point, you know, like there's no there's no gray area, there's a point where the tree is no longer alive and will not

live again. And yeah, and it's ultimately it is a living thing. It is a it is a thing that is cared for, that is nurtured, and you see it growing and you know that you have a role in its growth. Well, I wonder how did all this get started? Like who first had the idea to grow tiny versions of adult shaped trees in pots? Yeah, the history is pretty fascinating. So in a broader sense and really broad sense, we can just say, okay, what how far back to

ornamental gardens go? And it seems like they date back at least as far as c in ancient Egypt because we see them depicted in tomb paintings from that period. Uh. There are also some interesting connections to Babylonian and air Vedic traditions. Uh. So you know, it's probably one of the things that's ultimately lost in history because it basically comes down to all right, people people messing around with

plants and people creating ceramics. Uh, And I guess not just ceramics, but also like you know, I guess you can make a wooden pot as well, obviously, but people messing around with materials, messing around with plants and getting to the point where they realize, oh, I can I

can put this in a pot. I can take it with me, uh, you know, instead of just depending say on dried or maybe I might try and bring this plant with me as I travel somewhere else, bring it alive and uh and do something you know with it when I get there. I would not be surprised if that was tied into ancient beliefs about herbal medicine. Yeah, good point, And I think I think maybe that's where some of the air Vedic traditions also come into play.

But the immediate predecessor to the bonsai practice in Japan takes us to China around the year one thousand CE. I've also seen a date of seven hundred CE. Uh. So there may be some disagreement about you know, when exactly we're looking at here, but uh, for instance, I was looking at a source on this by Jack doth.

It often recognized as a Western authority on bonsai practices. Uh. He has a book titled Bonsai The Art of Living Sculpture, and he dates the beginnings of Bonsa i uh to the Han dynasty over two thousand years ago, or not the beginning of bonsai, but the beginning of this predecessor um he wrote. He writes the following in bond the

Anzai Survival Manual. Quote. Legend has it that at one point an ancient Chinese emperor commissioned the construction in his courtyard of vast miniature landscapes, complete with mountains, lakes, and of course miniature trees. These landscapes were designed to represent all the parts of his empire, so in this way he could stand on his balcony and survey his entire domain. WHOA, and again that I like that story because it gets back to what we're talking about, like the the irresistible

allure of the world at large made miniature. I absolutely see that, and you know it comes through in plenty of other ways too. I think, Uh, this is actually a primary motivator. I think for a lot of people who have model train hobbies. Not everyone, but I think a lot of people who are into model trains. It's not even so much about the train. I mean, that's part of it, but it's about it's about a driving excuse to create these miniature landscapes because the miniature landscapes

are so appealing for some reason. I mean, I love them. I love dioramas, and um, I love like a good museum that has carefully painted dioramas. I know, you paint miniatures,

so you have this appreciation. Sometimes I wonder if if some of the people who are into like the model train thing, or like or like miniature diorama recreations of historic battle scenes or whatever like that, are are it's basically the same impulse that drives uh, you know, people who would do D and D or tabletop miniatures, but for people who don't like magic and wizards. Yeah, I

think it's absolutely the case. Yeah, I mean you see it in wargaming because there's a lot of that that same energy that goes into creating the environments in trains. You see it in creating environments to have your little battles on. You see it in the Lego pastime among both children and adult fans of Legos, where they'll create whole little worlds. And that's that's part of it. Yeah, And and indeed diorama creation can just be so incredible.

I love a great diorama at at a museum. The the met has some of the bat I think it's the Met. Is it the met that has some really good ones? At any rate, I know I've seen some dioramas in in New York. But anyway, this particular Chinese predecessor to the bonsai this is that was the art of punsai. Uh. These were luxury items of the day and around roughly Buddhist monks brought the tradition to Japan, and is often the case, as is off the case in Japanese culture. They took an outside art form, they

refined it, and they made it their own. As doth It points out, the main drivers here were the Japanese people's love of nature uh, but also increasingly in increasing artistic awareness, and this coupled with the minimalist teachings of

Zen Buddhism. So all of this gets reflected uh in it uh and so so yeah, as part of the Zen Buddhism movement of the time, it takes root in Japanese culture and becomes you know, not only the this sort of you know, meditative pastime, that is associated again with Zin Buddhism, but also it becomes the ultimate pastime of the upper classes. Like it is this the uh you know, this is a luxury item to have and to care for and to just keep as a symbol of of who you are and where you are in society.

According to Robert J. Barron, writing for Bonzai Empire dot com quote finding beauty and severe austerity, Zen monks with less land forms as a model developed their tree landscapes along certain lines so that a single tree in a pot could represent the universe. So a connection here again is made between the tree and miniature, and not just the world at large, but the universe at what led large, you know, not just the world as a physical thing, but also the world as as far as our you know,

perceptions of self and reality and the soul are concerned. Um. A connection is also frequently made between the traditions of caring for the plant and meditation. And during the mid nineteenth century, as Japan began to make contact with the outside world again in major ways, the bonds ie tradition began to spread as well. And so yeah, now you

can find bonds i literally all over the world. That's interesting to see, especially for certain kinds of meditation, you know, the kind of meditation that are focused on the control of attention, for example, you know, mindfulness types of meditation.

What they have in common, it seems to me, is that there is this never ending balance between sort of the the natural growing chaos of life, which is sort of like your wandering attention as a as a meditator, or the growth of a plant in a pot, versus like all of these sort of like methods of shaping. You know, you could kind of think of meditation in one way as a as a shaping of the attention that naturally wants to grow in one way or another, but you're just sort of like pruning it down and

and making it harmonious. Yeah. I can't help but to compare it, first of all, to creating, say like a modal tank. You know, you put a lot of care into creating that tank, but then once it's done, you can basically put it on a shelf. Yeah, you might have to dust it off from time to time, maybe you'll go back and tweak something on it, but it's essentially complete. Uh. And then I think of of, say

having a you know, an actual child. You know, like that that is a case where you you're continually help helping this child to grow, but but in a way that eventually that child is going to leave you. That child is going to go on and have this this larger life and is no longer going to be a

part of your household. The bonds Eye tree is uh, he is always going to be there, you know, unless of course, you you you know, you you give it to somebody else, pass into the care of another, or or of course ultimately have to make plans for it to continue living after you have died. But you were, you were keeping it in this constrained, a dwarf environment, you know, like you wouldn't want to have you wouldn't want to have a Bond's eye child, you know that

that would be that would be monstrous. But the Bonds Eye tree different matter. I don't know. Some people do sort of prune and wire their children. Well you do want to wire your children, yeah, you want to. You want to to to to manipulate their development as much as possible towards um you know, the positive models of being. But then you know, eventually you want to, you know,

let him out of the Greenhouse. I don't know, it's not a perfect metaphor for rearing a child, but at any rate, I I do see like so much of the Bonds that is about about control, but not just control for control's sake, but control for artistic purposes. So um, yeah, you wouldn't want to take that approach to creating a child or to growing a child, etcetera. But then again, also yeah, it doesn't apply the same sort of model doesn't apply to other forms of art where you do

reach some level of completion. Um if I mean even if you were saying, if you were to compare it to say, writing, um, an epic poem, you know, and perhaps it's an epic poem you work on your entire life, and then towards the end of your life, uh, you know, you're still tinkering with it. Maybe you never get quite finished. But then does that pass on to another person to get finished and then onto another like generally you're only going to see, like maybe what a couple of generations

of tinkering with a particular work of literature. Well, this is very interesting and how it ties into epic poetry in particular, because it depends on which epic poem you're talking about. So if it's the a need, you could just have Virgial the author sits down to write the epic poem and they you know, Virgil can decide when

he's done tinkering on it mainly. But um, if it is something like the Odyssey or the Iliad that grows out of an oral tradition in which every telling of the tale was different originally, So like the written versions that we have of the Iliad and the Odyssey are very is it's extremely unlikely that that was in any

way a fixed form of the poem from antiquity. It's going to be something that grow out of an oral storytelling tradition that that had infinite different variations and was told by different tellers, and at some point some version

of it got written down. Now that's a great point. Yeah. So, and in a way you could compare the Bond's Eye rather favorably to the creation of a myth and a legend, you know, because you know, beyond the mere epic poem, the Iliot is something that is continually retold time and time again. It continues to live in different forms. We're we're perpetually trimming it and caring for it, um, letting it grow out a bit, and maybe braining it back in.

And we see this with other forms as well. I mean, you could even make an argument for something like Star Wars being the case. You know, like for a while it was George Lucas's bonds eye and uh, and then in different phases it has been passed on to other people to care for and if it remains popular, this

will continue for centuries even now. To come back to just a little bit here at the end to two science, I do want to point to a scientific paper that I came across, and it deals with the science of root pruning. So this is pretty neat. I mean, I'm not gonna get super into the details of the study, but it does make some great points just about uh, the wondrous um qualities of a plant's roots. So, plant roots are naturally robust and regenerative since they're a vital

they're they're vital for water and nutrient absorption. They have to be able to bounce back from injury really well, so they have impressive plasticity, which also helps them adapt to changing environmental circumstances such as drought. And this plasticity is harnessed in root pruning uh in bonsai as a

way to control size and vigor and industry. Interestingly enough, there was a seventeen study from Hokkaido University that looked at the molecular mechanism behind root regeneration to figure out exactly what's going on, because prior to this there was you know, there was definitely some strong theories, but the

exact molecular mechanism was largely unknown. That study, published in Plant and Sell Physiology, identified for the first time that YUCA nine, one of the eleven Yucca genes involved in oxen synthesis, plays a primary role in roots system regeneration. So, oxen is a plant hormone which causes the elongation of cells and shoots and is and is involved in regulating

plant growth. Now, to be clear, this particular study didn't use Bond's eye trees, but they were part of the title and even the cover art for this edition of Plant and Sell Physiology has this beautiful photograph of a Bond's eye on the cover. Okay, so root regeneration is related to this gene that stimulates the production of this hormone that causes cells to elongate. Um. And the elongation

of plant cells, by the way, is something that's very interesting. Uh, And I think a lot of people don't appreciate how much that comes in, even in things as mundane as cooking. You know, when we think about body cells, we think about cells that are I don't know, I mean, I don't know what's the best way to think of them in a three dimensional sense, but in the microscope slide since you think of them is basically like round or kind of like a little square fried egg. Right. Plant

cells can be very elongated. And this is one reason that if say you're cutting an onion, uh, the direction along which you cut the onion can make a big difference in how much of the compounds that induced tears are released when you're cutting the onions. So if you're slicing an onion cross wise, UM, so you're going you know, you're creating the rings. You tend to shear a lot more cells because the cells are elongated from poll to pull along the onion. So you're cutting more cells open,

releasing more of that juice. It's gonna make you cry more. If you turn the onion around and you cut it in the pole to pole direction, you're cutting parallel to the elongated cells instead of across them. Fewer cells are ruptured, less juice is released, and there's less crying. I don't really have a problem crying while cutting onions, but I definitely need to watch a video on cutting onions because

I know I'm doing it very incorrectly. I'm very slapdash with my onion cutting, and this has been pointed out before. I'll give you a trainer someday. Okay, I do a lot of onion cutting. I wonder how many onions I've cut up in my life, Like thousands? Yeah? Which which color onion do you think you've cut the most off? Oh? I guess regular yellow onions probably? Yeah, but do them all? I like the purple onions, red onions, oh yeah, yeah, those are really good for pickling. You'll ever make pickled

onions at home? Um? We have maybe have made some like fridge pickles or sort of like I don't know, bold pickles for recipes. I don't know what you call that when you sort of you pickle something for an hour or less. Yeah, not like full lacto fermentation, yeah, just simple like vinegar pickling. Um. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. One of the one of the most versatile things you can have in your kitchen is just just a nice container of pickled onions. And red onions are great for that.

So you just make like a brine solutions like half water, half vinegar, add some salt sugar if you want it, and then pour boil that, pour it over some sliced red onions and then put that on everything. All right, Well, well there you haven't. I feel like we covered a lot of a lot of ground in this episode, and obviously we'd love to hear from everybody out there about bonsai trees specifically, but also uh, dwarf trees in the strange Fluoridian wilderness, onion cutting uh uh you know, all

of it is on the table. But yes, specifically, if anybody out there has expertise with bonsai trees or uh you know it has more more experience with them, we'd love to hear from you. Uh, so please ride in and uh and tell us all about it. Um. And I do want to just yea remind everybody when when it becomes safe to do so, I do recommend going

out and seeing some Bond's eyes in real life. You know, if uh again, I saw them when I was in I think I saw some of the San Diego Zoo, and I saw some in the San Francisco somewhere, maybe a botanical garden there. But they're all over, and wherever you live, there's bound to be some place that will be offering you a chance to view them in the

near future. In the meantime, if you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts and where ever that happens to be. We just asked you rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hi, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.