Bonsai is a tree or plant cultured in a container and is therefore small in size, but yet in its entirety expresses the beauty and volume of a tree grown in a natural environment. The literal meaning of bonsai is
“planted in a tray.”
The difference between bonsai and ordinary potted plants is that the latter are usually plant species in which the flowers or leaves are the focus of appreciation, while with the former, the beauty of the entire tree and its harmony with the container in which it is planted is the matter of esthetic concern.
The bonsai may be only a foot tall, but still may have the exact feu-tures of a towering tree found high in the mountains, or a form similar to the lonely windswept pine that clings to a cliff above an isolated seashore.
There are various styles of bonsai, but, like trees found in their natural environment, no two are exactly identical. Bonsai with straight thick trunks, slanting trunks, double or triple trunks, etc.-all of these forms are seen in nature. Bonsai, in other words, is an attempt to artificially perfect natural tree forms in miniature. A recent trend in bonsai is to create even the feeling of a forest by group-planting a number of treesin a tray, and to plant trees and shrubs on an interestingly shaped rock to produce the impression of plant life on a rocky terrain.