Mame Chinese Elm

[treebeard55]

Axxon, sorry I didn't answer your question sooner. Portulacaria is sometimes known as "baby jade," but I can't help but wonder if some small-leafed varieties of Crassula are also called that. (Don't know, just think it may be so.)

Portulacaria is also called "elephant bush" because elephants have taste for it!

Here are a couple of pictures off the web. As you can see from the pic of Mr. Sartori's bonsai, they can be quite impressive as "art trees." (An archaic Chinese term for bonsai, if I understand correctly.)

 

[treebeard55]

One more picture, that didn't want to upload at first ...

 

[Alex DeRuiter]

Ahh, I see. Yeah, that's the one I was thinking about. I actually found another good picture on Google:

There was a bonsai vendor at the show in Grand Rapids that had several of these. I honestly was never particularly fond of these trees until last year's show where the same vendor had some very advanced ones -- I think what I didn't like was the bark...but what I had seen before was probably just young and undeveloped bark.

Anyway, thank you for the pictures

Also, an update on my tree. So far no more leaves had sprouted beside the new chutes (would it be chutes or shoots? That one thing I never really paid attention to) that came from the base...so I am now less hopeful. At this point I'm considering placing the tree in a larger container and chopping the dead branches so I can work on new branch structure...but I believe I'll wait a couple more weeks just in case. Considering this was my first winter with bonsai, I'm not surprised that this happened. I'm already working on my plan for this winter so I can be much more prepared. I'm disappointed in myself. lol

 

[HotAction]

FWIW, I think ALL plants that photosynthisize need a dark period to complete the photosynthetic cycle. If I remember my high school biology correctly.

http://www.tiem.utk.edu/bioed/webmodules/circadianrhythm.html

Rock, they refer to two distinct reactions during photosynthesis in the biology books. They are called the light reactions and the dark reactions. However, this is somewhat misleading. Whilst the light reactions actually require light to occur, the Dark reactions simply do not require light to occur. It is a bit of a misnomer, as dark reactions can and do occur at anytime, regardless of the levels of light.

Dave