J     Tsunemasa, Iwakaki   Somoku Sodate-gusa (Growing Trees and Plants / Cultivation and care of plants); 1818.  Two volumes.  A general work on horticulture which mentions bonsai. 2

J      Kinta (ed.)   Somoku Kihin Kagami (A Mirror of Rare Trees); 1827.  Three volumes.  Assisted by Genzo, a florist.  Shows the taste of the age for hundreds of rare and unusual varieties.  Includes illustrations of bonsai, none of which could be identified as surviving contemporary trees. 3

J      Taisho, Shokin   (Reknowned Plant Cultivators); 1827.  Includes a fine collection of bonsai drawings. 4

J      Mizuno Chukyo (aka Mizuno Issai) Somoku Kinyoshu (A Colorful Collection of Trees and Plants / Collection of tree leaves); 1829.  Six volumes plus Appendix.  Sketches by Oka Umpo and Sekine Untei.  Some scholars consider this to be the best sort ever published in Japan.  Includes the basic criteria, in detail and with illustrations, for the ideal form of the classical pine bonsai.  Some of the figures are the same as in Somoku Kihin Kagami. 5

J                          Somoku Ikushu; 1829.  A nearly complete work on gardening.  Subjects covered in this document include questions of soil quality, watering, feeding of plants, propagation, transplanting, treating insects and disease and notices of seasonal chores.  In the section on watering, the author discusses the importance of drainage holes in containers.  The discussion moves on to say that unglazed bisque-fired pots are the best for plants, as the soil will dry out faster and thus prevent root rot. 6

J      Choseisha, Aruji  Kinseiju-fu (Album of Long Lived Plants); 1833.  Possibly the first catalog of bonsai.  Illustrations and explanations as to propagation and the tools necessary.  Bright containers of various shapes and depths are shown in this three volume work. 7

J      Tsunemasa, Iwakaki  Somoku Sodate-gusa (Growing Trees and Plants / Cultivation and care of plants); 1837.  Revised second edition.  Gives more detailed advise with illustrations on the growing of bonsai. 8
 

1      Young, Dorothy Bonsai, The Art and Technique (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.; 1985), pg. 7, gives the date as 1822, b&w pictures from courtesy of Kyuzo Murata; cf. Lesniewicz, Paul  Bonsai: The Complete Guide to Art & Technique (Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press; 1984), pg. 13, who shows a sepia photo (attributed to Dr. Horace Clay of Hawaii), with the caption "1808, a pun-ching by Sumie Buzen."  What is shown is a detailed mountain landscape, in a round or oval light-colored pot with dark geometric patterns on the sides.  The groundcover goes up the sides of the rocks, and there are at least two thin taller trees, possibly pines.  A tiny, squat, open-walled hut with a pyramidal roof on four supports is in a flat clearing in this landscape.  Two tiny seated figures to the left are gazing out over the edge of this world.  This picture is very similar to the first one from the son's book mentioned above; Lesniewicz Bonsai in Your Home (NY: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.; 1994), pg. 59 has color reverse print and full depiction of landscape that is shown in Complete Guide; Stein, Rolf A. The World in Miniature (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; 1990), pg. 34, has another miniature landscape of similar style, also dated 1808.  Also, the one copy listed in the Japanese university library holdings database (http://webcat.nacsis.ac.jp/webcat_eng.html) is dated 1808.

2      Bartlett, Harley Harris and Hide Shohara   Japanese Botany During the Period of Wood-Block Printing (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop; 1961.  Reprinted from ASA GRAY BULLETIN, N.S. 3: 289-561, Spring 1961), pg. 252; Newsom, Samuel   Japanese Garden Construction (Tokyo: Domoto, Kumagawa and Perkins, 1939.  1988 reprint by Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie, NY), pg. 281, lists this as an 1815 garden book by Abe Rekisai; Liang, Amy  The Living Art of Bonsai (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.; 1992), pg. 107 states that "In Abe Kijin's (1821) Propagating Plants and Trees, bonsai is mentioned along with notes explaining the Japanese pronunciation 'hachiue,' which means potted plant."

3     Bartlett, pg. 172, has a b&w photo of a page from, and translates the title as Collection of unusual plants [with drawings and writings by many experts], giving the publication data as Edo, Bunsei 10 (1827); Yashiroda, Kan "The Amateur Bonsai Fancier" in Yashiroda Handbook on Dwarf Potted Trees (NY: Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1953, 1959), has b&w photo on pg 83 and states on pg. 82 that "The accompanying photograph of winter daphne (D. odora) is reproduced from a book published in 1827; it shows a crested branch which was rooted as a cutting and perpetuated [sic] and trained as a bonsai."; Del Tredici, Peter Early American Bonsai (Jamaica, MA: Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University; 1989), pp. 14-15 and 22, states the author as Kintaro; cf. Wichmann, Siegfried Japonisme: the influence on Western art in the 19th and 20th centuries (New York: Park Lane; 1980.  English translation, 1981), pp. 330-331: "There are indications that the design studio of the Daum Workshop in Paris [c.late 1880's] had access to the work So-moku Ki-hin Kaga-mi, published by printers and botanists in Kyoto in 1828.  Individual parts -- mostly boughs -- are copied exactly on the ornamental vases of the brothers Daum.  Many Japanese botanical books, in fact, were used in Europe as reference materials for Japan inspired artwork, crafts and designs."

4     Liang, pg. 107.

5     Naka, John and Richard K. Ota and Kenko Rokkaku   Bonsai Techniques for Satsuki (Ota Bonsai Nursery; 1979), pg. 32, lists the author as Mizuno Tadaki; Tsumura, Toichi, M.F.S. "Dwarf Trees," Japan Society: Transactions (Vol. VI, Part 1, pp. 2-15), pg. 11 includes quote about; Nippon Bonsai Association  Classic Bonsai of Japan (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International; 1989), pp. 150-152 have three b&w photos of pages and pine-grower quote from.  First photo [above] from pg. 151, described as "A picture of a 'classical pine bonsai'" and second photo [above], same page, as "An explanation...of kannuki-eda, kuruma-eda, and other 'taboo' branch formations."; Bartlett, pp. 172-173, with b&w photo of page from on pg. 174, Fig. 47.

6     "Notes on Antique Chinese Bonsai Pots" by Ikune Sawada, Bonsai, BCI, September/October 1988, Vol. XXVII, No. 5, pg. 25; Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XXXII, No. 3, May/June 1993, pg. 23, mentions an 1818 gardening guide by Kanen Iwasaki, Somoku-Ikushu.

7     Yashiroda, Kan Bonsai, Japanese Miniature Trees (Newton, MA: C.T. Branford Co./London: Faber and Faber; 1960), pp. 21-22, which has no author specified and the date as 1830; Koreshoff, Deborah R.  Bonsai: Its Art, Science, History and Philosophy (Brisbane, Australia: Boolarong Publications; 1984), pg. 8, no author and 1830; Nippon Bonsai Association Classic Bonsai of Japan, pp. 149-150, has two b&w photos of pages from, and lists the publication date as 1833; Ishiyama, Nonkey T. "Historical Notes on Japanese Bonsai," Bonsai Journal, ABS, Vol. 5, No. 3, Fall 1971, pp. 43-44 has b&w [shown above] on latter page captioned "Illustrations [sic] from a book of Japanese potted plants dated 1830. From the collection of N.T. Ishiyama"; cf. Shufunotomo, Editors of The Essentials of Bonsai (Portland, OR: Timber Press; 1982), pg. 9, has date of 1803; and Newsom, pg. 281, has "Kinsei Zu-fu by Choseisha, an 1832 garden book"; per private e-mail dated Jan. 23, 2000 to RJB from John Romano (who owns a copy of the work) the author, title, date and size are as listed above. 

8      Bartlett, pg. 253, with b&w of the right-hand plate above on pg. 254 as Fig. 101; Classic, b&w on pg.149; Yashiroda, Kan "The Amateur Bonsai Fancier," has b&w photo on pg. 83 also of the right hand plate from above and states on pg. 82 that "The second photograph is reproduced from a book published in 1837.  The first glance shows merely a completed bonsai; but closer inspection reveals that on each branch of the thread-form Sawara cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera filifera) one to three scions of Hiba arbor-vitae, or false arbor-vitae (Thujopsis dolabrata), have been grafted.  When the graft unions are completed, all the branches of the Sawara cypress are to be cut off and the whole tree converted into Hiba arbor-vitae.
       "These are not childish attempts or vague ideas but are the products of long years of an age of military ascendency, when every profession was hereditary -- the time called the Tokogawa Era..."