Page 46 - Tài liệu Ebook cây cảnh Bonsai and Penjing

chapter three

Gifts from Japan

An apocryphal story, told in jest, says that when John Creech, the new Director
of the U.S. National Arboretum, and Sylvester “Skip” March, the Arboretum’s
Chief Horticulturist at the time, left for Tokyo in 1975 to receive Japan’s
Bicentennial Gift, they took only two large, empty suitcases to pick up what they
expected would be a few tiny trees. Instead, they were thrilled to find 50 trees
waiting for them—one for each state in the U.S.—plus six viewing stones, then
astonished to learn there would be three more bonsai added to the group. These
additions were gifts from the Imperial family—Princess Chichibu, Prince
Takamatsu and Emperor Hirohito himself. The trees and the viewing stones
packed in their sturdy crates required an entire Pan Am 707 freighter to ship
them from Tokyo to California. Two other planes flew them across the
continental U.S., arriving in Baltimore, Maryland on March 31, 1975. The trees

were unpacked and placed in a special facility for the year-plus quarantine
period Creech had negotiated to make their importation possible.

Some bonsai from the Bicentennial Gift soak up the sun they need in the museum’s courtyard on
a summer day, with koinobori flags flying, mementos of Children’s Day, and crapemyrtles at their
peaks.