Recognize this trunk? It's a piece of a famous bonsai (see below). Bill Valavanis took this photo just a couple days ago. I cropped it just a bit for a closer look

Bill and his camera are running wild in Japan. We left him at Kimura’s nursery yesterday, so we’ll continue with a couple shots he took of a famous Kimura Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora), and a photo of the same tree from the last century (not taken by Bill).

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Bill's shot of the whole tree

Here's a photo of the same tree right after Kimura restyled it, sometime around 1996 (it's the same photo that's on the cover of the May-June 1996 issue of Bonsai Today). At the time it was one of the most famous Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora) bonsai in the world and it still may be. The same photo is also in the White pine gallery in our Masters’ Series Pine Book.