I am getting my plans ready to go collecting tree this
winter. The problem is that I don't know what to
expect when I go collecting. Sometimes I wonder what
kind of animal I will meet (no wolfs or bears,
please). I also find it hard to go collecting when
there is no leaves to identify the tree. I was hoping
to go with Mike Hanson this winter but I don't know
how that will turn out. I live down here in central
Texas and they have wonderful lacebark elm, cedar elm,
river birch, Texas ebony, and oaks that I wish to
acquire this winter.

Lacebark elm are exotics (U. parvifolia, the Chinese elm) and you
can get better ones at a nursery, or at a downtown urban renewal
site for that matter. Oaks are tough to collect.

As for animals, it probably will be too cold for the dangerous
ones -- rattlesnakes -- but if you choose a warm day, keep your
eyes open. Most of the dangerous stuff you would encournter will
be thorny trees and shrubs -- and they're more than enough!

Another question. The site that I
am looking at right now are own by coorperations for
business. Do I still have to ask permissions to
collect from there?

Yes! Absolutely! You also need permission to enter their
property,
fences or no fences. Everything that grows on the land is their
property and corporations being what they are, someone probably
considers a lot of it to be valuable. They also will not want
the liability of non-company personnel wandering their land
without their knowledge.

They don't seem to put up any
fences or other boundaries around the land.

It still is private property. You front yard probably isn't
fenced, either. Would you want someone to just walk on and start
digging up the roses?

If anybody
that lives close to Austin, that would like to go
collecting with me please email me offline.

I recommend that you go with at least one experienced collector,
one who can tell you which trees are collectible and which are
not -- either because the site is impossible to collect from or
the species is one that a beginner shouldn't tackle.

Old timers on this list (and readers of ABS's Bonsai Journal)
know my position on the ethics of collecting. Unfortunately,
people keep telling me of bonsaiests who appear to have no ethics
and who collect wherever they please and whatever they please --
including on protected lands out west and the taking of trees
that should not be taken.

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