American Bonsai Society

List of North American  Native plants

used for Bonsai

This Document is a Native plant listing of North America and surrounding areas covered by the ABS organization.   We make every attempt to keep this list up to date with membership involvement and reporting. If you are an ABS member and have natives that you're working with that are not reported or new to a regional location, please make a report by going to the ABS forum by clicking here. The minimum information that you should report is the botanical name of the plant, your location (see below for location codes) and a picture of the bonsai tree if you have one.

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 Last updated - 01/15/12

Added code definitions

Added to Reported

Vitis rotundifolia (Muscadine grape)

Moved from Un-reported to Reported

Added to Un-reported

Juniperus pinchotii (Pinchot's juniper)

ABS member location code format is "xxxyy" examples: 5w, 6ae, 10m etc...

x = growing zone

y = Continent location

Continent and region locations

e  = Eastern US and Canada from Atlantic coast to Mississippi river

c  = Central US and Canada from Mississippi river to the Rockies

w  = Western US and Canada from Rockies to Pacific coast (includes Alaska and Hawaii)

m  = Mexico

pr  = Puerto Rico

vi  = Virgin Islands

Plant Name codes

" " = cultivated variety

var = natural varietals

subsp = sub-species

Plant status

(_^*) = native populations under urban or commercial stress

Reported being used by an ABS member

(botanical name, common name, ABS member location with trees)

 Abies balsamea (Balsam fir) zones 4e

USDA  - photo Gymnosperm database species account

ABS photo gallery

Abies grandis (Grand fir) zones 5w

USDA - Photo USDA species account

ABS   photo gallery

Image 1

Abies lasiocarpa (Sub-alpine fir) zones 5w, 7w (some difficulty in 5w)

USDA - Photo USDA species account

ABS   photo gallery

Image 1

American Bonsai Society

 Maples for bonsai

By Randy Davis

Well, it is spring and the trees are beginning to leaf out, bringing with them the excitement of another bonsai season. One of the very first trees to leaf out is the Red Maple (Acer rubrum) which made me think it’s time to finally do an article on Maples that are used for bonsai.  I say “finally” because the Maple family is so huge, with approximately 150 species, it has been plaguing me on how to formulate an article without making it confusing.  Of course, when one looks at the number of Maple species that are used for bonsai by American artists they can be counted on one hand and, even then you wouldn’t have to use all of your fingers.  American bonsai is almost exclusively limited to the Trident (Acer burgerianum), Japanese (Acer palmatum) and Amur  (Acer ginnala) maples.  While these three species are all excellent for bonsai they are not the only species that should be considered when selecting deciduous plant material.  Maples present some problems to the average enthusiast due to the huge number of species and even the variability within the cultivars of a single species to select the right one for the correct application.  Let me explain a little, I knew this was going to be difficult but here we go anyway.    We’re all familiar with the horticultural terms of “Genus,” “species” and “cultivar”.  If you’re not familiar, here’s an example - Acer palmatum “Arakawa” – “Acer” is the Genus, “palmatum” is the species and “Arakawa” is the cultivar.  From a taxonomic level what makes the maple family difficult is that it also includes terms such as “Series,” which is used to group similar species together such as the “Palmata” series which includes Acer palmatum and Acer japonicum and others which are closely related; and “sub-species” such as Acer palmatum ssp: (subspecies) amoenum and ssp: matsumurae which are very closely related but not sufficiently different to warrant their own species classification.  Suffice it to say, the maples are confusing. For our purposes we can leave it at that!