wrote:
I saw the most amazing natural jin today! I was visiting a freind's
lakehouse in northeast Texas and there was a live oak that had been
struck by lightning and there were smaller branches, obviously grown
after the top trunk had died, branching up to one side of it. There was
also some pretty ivy covering the lower third....i nearly melted.
Partly cause the weather was hot, and partly becaust the tree was so
nifty. I wish i'd gotten pictures, but my freinds thought I was weird
enough already.


Jin, particularly on lower branches, are quite common on the southern
live oak - Quercus virginiana. It comes from the branches being shaded
by the canopy. Unlike other broad-leaved trees a live oak's jin can
last for many, many years. The wood was used for the keels of large
sailing ships back in colonial days and rots slooooowly.

You shouldn't worry about what people "think." (Just be glad they do --
it's rare these days.) All us bonsaiests are certifiable, anyway.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Nature encourages
no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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