Brazilian raintree (before and after)

I consider myself very lucky when in March of 2008 I purchased this Brazilian Raintree from Erik Wigert for an extremely reasonable price. He had just acquired this tree along with many others from a gentleman who retired from bonsai due to health reasons. Since Erik did not have much time invested in the tree he let it go for what I consider cheap. It was definitely an ugly duckling at the time. It had large wounds from pruning cuts that Erik had just made and the foliage was fairly sparse but it just needed TLC. Flash forward to almost exactly 4 years to date and the tree has come a long way. All the large cuts have since completely healed, the tree has grown significantly and was placed in an oval Sara Rayner pot. I have to significantly cut it back on a yearly basis because it is such an aggressive grower. Here are the before and after pictures. Enjoy

March 2008


March 2012

Nice progression and yes you were very lucky. He would sell that same tree today for over a thousand dollars in. Great job.

Good find, nice roots and trunk. I Just bought one of Erik's Raintrees myself and in working on the tree today I noticed just how hard he was pruning in order to try to maintain the taper. You've done good service by this tree.
-Jay

One of the best Raintree I have ever seen...

one of the Malaysia bonsai player plant - Brazilian raintree

Very nice Xuang, thanks for sharing. Hope to meet you early June in Subang exhibition...

Yes sifu...see u in June's Competition.
Remember bring me ur unique mame premna lor...haha

xuang26 wrote:

one of the Malaysia bonsai player plant - Brazilian raintree

Xuang,

This tree is not a Pithecellobium tortum (brazilian rain tree). It is a close relative, Caesalpinia ferrea, a Brazilian leopard tree.

Kind regards and thanks for sharing,

Jose Luis

Very nice tree!

It is probably the lighting/shadows/shot angle but I miss some branches in the original tree that I cannot see on the recent pic.

Thanks for your very kind words Robert.

It is not the lighting Dario but I do need to do some additional pruning. I realized after I took the photo yesterday that the first branch on the left is not visible. This first branch has tripled in girth since I purchased the tree and the wire marks have all but disappeared so it is an important part of the tree that needs to be displayed. Thank you

Great job Lazaro. I really like this tree as well.

Have a great week!!!
Sam

jrodriguez wrote:
This tree is not a Pithecellobium tortum (brazilian rain tree). It is a close relative, Caesalpinia ferrea, a Brazilian leopard tree.

Jose,

What features identify Xuang's tree as Caesalpinia ferrea instead of Chloroleucon tortum (which I believe is the current correct classification for Brazilian Raintree)

thank you
-Jay