AusBonsai

A few years ago this little pea came up in a tray with a trio of Banksia seedlings. I let it be thinking it would die off in short order. Well it didnt & still hasn't even after repotting twice. The first time I simply pie cut a wedge of soil out of the tray it was in & put it into a cascade pot without touching the root ball. This year I went all out, bare rooted to swap into akadama... I will kill this thing eventually It has been a bit slow coming back from the repot and I put it down to a number of things. It was totally denuded top & bottom, I left only short stubs of the growth & very little fine root. I really didnt expect the baby carrot of a central root 2cm thick & about 6-7cm long and the rest just had to be shown off. Another thing I think that slowed its recovery was not enough water! Since it has been sitting in a saucer it has really started going. I will expose more root over time and probably put it back into a broad shallow tray as it originally grew but for now I love it in this earthenware pot I picked up for the princely sum of just 10cents including the saucer(hey it was 1983 & I was 8). I was already well known at the local nursery and Julie liked me

Matt

Very interesting specimen. The leaves look very much like Glycine species - typically arranged in 3s. I take it you haven't noticed flowers yet? The glycines I'm familiar with have small, purple pea flowers. One I grew from seed from East Gippsland and didnot even notice it flowering, just the seedpods afterwards. I'm surprised by the roots but I have never looked at the roots of an older plant, only tiny seedlings while pricking out. Its not too unusual for natives to have swollen roots like this as storage for food/water/energy to survive dry summers and drought.
Good work with an unusual species for bonsai.

shibui wrote:Very interesting specimen. The leaves look very much like Glycine species - typically arranged in 3s. I take it you haven't noticed flowers yet? The glycines I'm familiar with have small, purple pea flowers. One I grew from seed from East Gippsland and didnot even notice it flowering, just the seedpods afterwards. I'm surprised by the roots but I have never looked at the roots of an older plant, only tiny seedlings while pricking out. Its not too unusual for natives to have swollen roots like this as storage for food/water/energy to survive dry summers and drought.
Good work with an unusual species for bonsai.

Hey Shibui,

Thanks for the info, I will do some more research but on a quick one i think your spot on with species, now just to work out which one. It does bear racemes of small purple flowers, normally they are quite noticable due to the sheer mass of them rather than the size. I have not seen any so far since I repotted but it is carrying some seed pods so it has. Except for when I have cut it back hard (about once a year) it has rarely been without a flower since it was a baby.

Just one of lots of odd & unusual natives I have laying around my benchs, one day I will get round to cataloguing them all. I forgot to mention size, the pot is 10cm high & 12cm wide.

Matt

Edit: followed your lead and found it straight away, Glycine clandestina WOOHOO another one solved.

Knew it wouldnt be too long... heres the flowers....

I decided it was time & repotted this a couple of weeks ago, exposing more of the main roots and seperating the small second to create a bit of space between the 2. Last year I tried keeping all the shoots really short to see if it would make any diff to the growth... I saw lots of seed but no flowers and on the whole didnt feel it benefitted in any way so it will be allowed to run riot again this year.