New Bonsai......

....... while at the Bonsai Convention in Orlando, Fla. over the weekend, I purchased 4 new pre-bonsai plants.  The first one I am posting is a Buttonwood.  It grows in the Keys of Florida, Miami shores and further south towards the equator.  A Buttonwood requires a collection permit as the plant itself, is protect as an endangered species.  It takes months to get the permit.  There is a woman, that used to live in Homestead, that collects the plants.  They can only be gotten when owners of the land apply for permits to bulldoze/develop/remodel the areas.  When her permit is issued, she can go to the land, gather and save all of the Buttonwoods and take them home to make bonsai out of them, there by saving the plants.

She told me this weekend about a time when after 9 months of application, she got her permits,  went to the land and found the owners had gotten fed up with the regulations and  holdup,  had gone ahead and bulldozed all the plants and destroyed everything, making a sand beach.

    That is the backstory about the Buttonwood.  I have never had one of these plants before.  They are prized for the deadwood and gnarly look they get from being thrashed and windblown by storms, hurricanes, wild surf, and even people.  I was drawn to the trunk of this plant.  You can just see the lines running down a very fat, short and tapered trunk.  There is so much character in this trunk....  with a great deal of potential!