Jim Gremel wrote:

Steve:

Seiju is a sport from Hokkaido, not yatsabusa. Yatsabusa may be
related, but it has a narrower leaf & the bark is less corky & isn't
it browner?

Carl Young grew hokkaido elms by the thousands at his Seiju-en Bonsai
Nursery in Lodi, California. One of them grew an unusual branch, from
which Carl made a few cuttings. The next year he made a huge number of
cuttings & grew them in his fields. He sold them from the field for
$35 each. I think this all started in the early '70's & was documented
in International Bonsai Magazine, probably in the '80's.

A few years ago, Boon (my teacher ) said "Look." and showed me a small
hokkaido elm. It was perfectly normal, except it had an unusual branch
- a mutation that looked exactly like Seiju. I think that such a
discovery today would be worth a lot more than $35/tree, so I figure
that Boon missed making a small fortune by merely, perhaps,
twenty-five years!

Jim

It is also my understanding that both 'Yatsubusa' and 'Seiju' are sports
of 'Hokkaido', and that most likely that 'Hokkaido' is a sport of
'Corticosa'. 'Hokkaido' itself is not a stable cultivar and sports
readily. I have seen dozens of larger leafed sports from my eighty large
stock plants. Most of these are similar too, or identical to 'Seiju',
some are full size 'Corticosa' -like sports.

The most interesting of these larger leaf sports so far (for me) is one
that has formed huge bark plates similar to cork bark Pinus thunbergii
cvs. I have named this one 'Plate Bark'. I have propagated it, but
haven't released it yet because I want to make sure that the offspring
will exhibit the same plate character of the parent branch; there is
some doubt that it will do this. I have the feeling that the sport may
have simply induced the plate bark furrows on the 'Hokkaido' portion
alone, and won't continue that pattern into the new sport section. I
have waited about ten years for a definitive answer, but the result is
still a few years off. I examined the plant recently and it appears to
forming furrows into the sport section, but I still can't be sure. If it
does reproduce these plates, it will be a very exciting development. The
bark is far superior to either 'Seiju' or 'Corticosa' in my opinion.

Brent
EvergreenGardenworks.com


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