Species Spotlight: Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia)

The interesting pattern which gives Lacebark Elms their name.

The Chinese Elm, also known as Ulmus parvifolia or Lacebark Elm, is a deciduous tree species native to China, Korea and Japan. The name Lacebark Elm refers to the interesting pattern created as parts of the tree’s bark flake off with age. This elm is a very hardy species that can grow in moist or dry soils – these trees can survive in USDA Hardiness Zones 4 through 9 – and thrive in hot urban environments. 

The elms typically have an upright trunk with a wide round canopy, and the average height is about 70 feet. This species is also resistant to diseases and pests, like Dutch elm disease and Japanese bark beetle. Three different Ulmus parvifolia are located at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

This Chinese Elm, a penjing donated by Dr. Yee-sun Wu in 1986, resides in the Chinese Collection. The elm has been in training as a penjing since 1956 and was planted in the “rock-clinging” style. In this composition, a beautiful piece of Ying Tak Stone was placed vertically and two Chinese Elms were set in the natural contours of the stone. 

The trunk line of the tree on the left moves leftward up the rock to a wide, rounded canopy. The smaller tree on the right provides foliage mass and adds directionality to the overall composition. The beautiful blue antique container contrasts with the orange-red fall foliage, which can be seen in the late fall months at the Museum. 

Our second Chinese elm, also from the Chinese Collection, was donated by D.C. Metro native Stanley Chinn in 2002. The training age of this tree is unknown, but based on the trunk diameter the tree appears to have grown in the ground for decades before being put into a container. 

The style of this tree is “windswept” or “wind blowing”. The elongated branches on the left and the short branches on the right create the illusion of a powerful wind blowing on the tree from the right side. The interesting and exciting windswept style simultaneously depicts gracefulness and denotes strong environmental conditions.

The last Chinese Elm composition is a wonderful landscape planting, which is part of the Chinese Collection. Penjing Master Yunhua Hu donated the composition in 2004 after he created it earlier that year at the U.S. National Arboretum’s Penjing Symposium. This is an excellent example of penjing in which not just a single tree is displayed, but a combination of trees, understory plants, stones and figurines. The intricate design demonstrates how using multiple smaller trees can create a large and pleasing display. 

The movement of the whimsical trees guides the viewer to settle their gaze on a small stream with a gentleman fishing. The stream pulls the viewer in and provides a nice break between the larger and smaller groupings of trees, adding to the overall directionality of the whole composition. 

Ask to see the outstanding examples of Chinese Elms in our collection on your next visit to the Museum!

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: A Winter’s Visit

As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss"," published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.

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Washington, D.C. has resisted giving itself over to winter this year, with 70 degree days and only a handful of nights below freezing. On one of these warm January days, I visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum to photograph the trees in the winter light.

While the trees are the main attraction, the Museum grounds are not to be overlooked. The cryptomeria-lined entrance gives you the sense of moving from one world to another, emerging through the main gates to the courtyard where a single tree can be seen.

Stephen Voss

To find the majority of the trees, you must walk through the Chinese Pavilion, in which the trees spend the colder months. The open air building boasts a roof of translucent glass, which keeps the pavilion a few degrees warmer than outside. But more importantly, this glass is the key to creating some of the most beautiful light the Museum sees all year. The low-angled winter sunbeams scatter and soften as they pass through the panes but somehow still retain a certain crispness as they fall upon the resting trees.

The trees are often just inches apart from each other, allowing for one to observe the collection as a miniature bonsai forest – a remix of the typical presentation that gives each tree its own space. In these tight configurations, there are photographs to be made exploring the relationships between the trees.

Stephen Voss

There are signs of life to be found in the pavilion even a third of the way through winter. Camellias are bursting with blooms and the Chinese quince’s jewel-like green buds erupt skyward. Winter light in the Chinese Pavilion never comes from straight above, but shines from hard angles, reflecting the shortened daylight hours.

Stephen Voss

The Toringo Crab Apple, in training since 1905 and one of my favorite trees, still bears some small yellow fruit that faintly sways in the breeze from the circulating fan.

Winter is a season of rest and stillness, and I don’t think there’s a better time of year to visit the Museum. Over the year and a half that I was photographing my book – In Training, A Book of Bonsai Photos – the majority of the photographs were produced from the two winters I spent there. The bare deciduous trees become abstract forms, and it’s at these times that the invisible hands of the bonsai master’s work are most clearly seen. 

HISTORICAL TREE SPOTLIGHT: “Spring Rain” Stone Penjing

When thinking of bonsai or penjing, one naturally imagines perfectly manicured trees. But in this month’s Historical Tree Spotlight, we’re shifting gears and taking a look instead at a unique stone presentation called “Spring Rain.” Museum curator Michael James says the rocky display exemplifies a fundamental difference between bonsai and penjing.

“Penjing, in the literal translation, is more of a theme or a landscape in a shallow container, whereas bonsai is really the minimalist, iconic tree we all know,” he said.

A gift from the Shanghai Botanical Garden to the Museum in 2006, “Spring Rain” is usually on display during the summer months in the Chinese Pavilion.

The penjing sits in a nearly five-foot tray crafted from white marble – a prolific resource used often in Southern China – which is meant to portray the surrounding sea. Its jutting landscape is a representation of a UNESCO World Heritage Site composed of a group of land masses protruding from Halong Bay in the South China sea.

Although “Spring Rain” represents a physical place on Earth, James said penjing are not always crafted to resemble real locations. The displays are often created as a poetic representation of an imaginary world or whimsical place.  

“With some of the other penjing we have in the Museum, the trees are so curvy they don’t even look the way trees naturally grow,” he said. “But they do look like an amazing place to be if you were miniaturized in that setting.”

According to James, the small boats under the main rock signify another capital difference between bonsai and penjing. The tiny pewter or ceramic figurines are accents used in penjing to create a humanistic scale. James said the presence of greenery is minimal in penjing, and the lack of plants in “Spring Rain” speaks to the minimalistic approach of the art.

He added that penjing artists use a freeform “clip-and-grow” method, rather than training the trees with wire, to redirect the trees’ energy into the desired form.

“With penjing, artists and creators allow the tree to do more of what it does naturally,” James said.