Hey thanks butlern
Hey Solange, I connected with Mary Miller via email yesterday. The last time she saw it was between 95- 97. Joe passed away in 97. The tree had fallen into terrible disrepair after being sold to a friend of his...............wildly overgrown in the top and roots. She said that he was completely heartbroken over it. Tried to bring it back to form, she didn't mention if it worked or not. She hasn't seen it since then. I was kind of bummed to hear about it as this thing was incredible. I've never been much on tropical trees but that one was just killer. What a shame. That tree was exemplary for tropical species. I met Joe in 87 at a convention in Fort Walton Beach, my first bonsai convention. He helped me pick out a buttonwood from one of the vendors, Mary Madison, if I'm remembering correctly. Extremely nice guy!
There seems to be another example of a similar age, though if we believe the story of the salicarias origin it must be younger, because the cloud was the "first". At least we might take comfort in that, even if the story goes no further, if you own a willow leaf you own a piece of the cloud? Here is the link to one supposedly of similar age created originally by dave bogan but passed down to a new generation - http://www.banyanbonsai.com/#/mountains/ Thanks for looking into it Steve. Maybe I'll do a bit of digging myself. This, and other mystery trees, are fascinating.That one is a really good one as well. As you said, it's certainly related. If I understood Mary's article, Joe didn't start propagating it until 1975 . Were there others brought in during the 10 year period from his finding of it until the time he started reproducing it? who knows? If not, all the rest had to come from that one, I suppose. It's an interesting thing indeed to see trees that I saw early on and see current pictures of them. There have been a number of them in recent times, one on here. A Dan Robinson tree from around 1985. Saw it in an old BCI magazine article. Then maybe 2 years ago, I think it was Colin Fraser who posted pics from a California convention, there it was. I kept looking at it thinking,......something familiar about this one. Well, sure enough, it was. One other was an ancient shimpaku from the slip cover of Mr. Kyuzo Murata's, " Masters Book of Bonsai". Well, I saw a video a year or two ago of his garden and there it was. It looks a little different than it did 30 years ago, but still a good tree. Hey Sir, thanks for commenting!!Wow. That's sad. At least we know one thing, the story doesn't end there. Maybe its still floating around somewhere? Maybe it got chopped up into cuttings and is floating around inconspicuously amongst it's genetic brethren?
Yes, this line had smaller leaves than most
I have a bit of zone jealousy to be honest haha
