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Bonsai trees strengthen U.S.-Japan friendship [photo gallery] [1]

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Date: 2024-05-01 21:29:00+00:00

For almost 50 years, the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington has been home to a collection of bonsai trees that is among the finest in the world and a symbol of the United States’ and Japan’s enduring friendship.

The collection started with 53 bonsai trees Japan gave the U.S. in 1976 in honor of the 200-year anniversary of America’s independence. That gift of trees, raised by top practitioners of Japan’s centuries-old bonsai tradition, formed the basis of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, which is part of the Arboretum in Washington. (Penjing is a similar practice to bonsai but developed earlier in China.)

One of the bonsai trees, a Japanese white pine, now nearly 400 years old, survived the 1945 Hiroshima bombing during World War II. Bonsai practitioner Masaru Yamaki — whose family had raised it for five generations, since the tree’s germination in 1625 — gave the tree to the museum. It has become a “symbol of peace, reconciliation and friendship,” says museum curator Michael James.

The number of bonsai trees housed at the museum has increased since the original gift, but the Yamaki Pine remains its oldest tree and among its most notable.

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[1] Url: https://share.america.gov/bonsai-trees-strengthen-us-japan-friendship/

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