AusBonsai

Hi all,

I've been collecting some lepto's from a property near me ( permission off the owner of course ) and I'm not sure what species they are?

Here are the pics anywho,





Regards Jason.

May just be a Baeckea?

Do not think Baekea. foliage looks too big and too light a green
Ken

Hmmmm

I know this is a hard one, as there are so many different variations. I am proactively looking myself, and am struggling. I'm sure one of us will nail it though.

Jason

The first is a Leptospermum, one of the unsung underused natives of bonsai and it looks like you have some great potential there, look forward to seeing the whole tree sometime. (we need a nudge smiley)

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-b ... rmum&dist=
This is a species list of Leptospemum growing in NSW, if you have a look at some of the other search engines they will do alot of the work for you just by telling them where you found it growing etc, good luck & enjoy the research if you are heading down the collecting road, before on methods & after on what you actually got, we all do it(or have done), some more than others.

Jasonb wrote:I know this is a hard one, as there are so many different variations. I am proactively looking myself, and am struggling. I'm sure one of us will nail it though.

Jason

Mate I hear you & feel your pain, I have the odd one or 2 I still cannot ID, my best guess would be one of the subforms of polygalafolium, widespread, variable, treelike.
Matt

Based on the pictures only, this is my guess:
The first is either a Leptospermun Scoparium Pearl or Leptospermun Polygaliforium. However it is almost impossible to successfully dig a Leptospermun Scoparium. That at least is as far as my personal experiences go. The Leptospermun Polygaliforium is a little more tolerant.
The second looks like a paper bark.
The third resembles the foliage of a bottlebrush.

A more accurate assessment involve the bark, leave, flower and smell of crush leaf.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

CJ

Unfortunately the top one was too big to dig and is not in my collection due to this, but here is a pic of the tree nun the less.


Jason

Cheers for the link too Matt,

I am leaning towards the flaky bark tea tree now, it is the closest resembling tree so far, not counting my penny's yet, but I feel a lot more comfortable with that species.



The first two are from the link,



These are trees of my own,

I will get some detailed shots of wild trees over the next couple of days and post them for comparison and discussion.

Jason

Great work Jason, I reckon you are as close as you will get, it is also a good species to work with but backbudding is unpredictable so I stick to leaving some green when pruning. The one in the yellow bucket looks fantastic, interested to hear you method & timing.

Cheers Matt, as for timing, I collect when it is HOT, off rocks is the most successful, you can retrieve a lot more of the roots this way. Then after that it is straight into 25% seasol and the rest water. They power on if you don't touch the roots straight away. I actually styled the one in the bucket today. The photos don't do it justice because it looks too busy, but here they are anyway.







I have gone for the weeping style with this one. I have left a bucket load of extra foliage on it just to aid its recovery.

Jason