Premna, A New Rising Star Of Bonsai in Indonesia

Premna, a new rising star of bonsai in Indonesia after Pemphis acidula and Casuarinas equisetifolia.

Premna is tropical and sub-tropical plant found in many countries e.g. China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia to Australia. There are about 200 different species with different leaf shapes and characters, but P. microphylla and P. serratifolia are the most favorite species for bonsai due to the physical character as well as the ideal leaves.  

It used to be called “Chou Niang Zi” in Chinese, which means “Stinky Lady” or even worse – “Stinky Bitch” due to the unpleasant odor of the leaf. But why “bitch“? Could because it is so sexy, charming, passionate, tempting, yet vigorous and dynamic.

Premna grows along the sandy or rocky seacoast as small trees or shrubs, and some in mountainous area. The one from seacoast is most likely used for bonsai due to the unique texture of the trunk especially for the natural jin-shari as the result of natural forces e.g. sea-water and sand-blasting; and the dramatic zigzag trunk lines formed by the harsh condition. P. microphylla is mostly used for bonsai in Taiwan, while P. serratifolia is used in Indonesia and sometimes grafted with the leaves of P. microphylla to combine the unique bark texture with the small leaves. P. serratifolia in Indonesia is mostly growing on the rocky hill side along the coastline facing to the Indian Ocean. Hunting Premna yamadori is an adventurous experience. In some area, there is no track to access to the hill; in such condition, the huntersshould jump into the water and approach the hill by the big wave; and when the wave flows back, they can hold on the rock to climb up.

When a yamadori is collected, it is tight with rope, through into the sea and collected by their colleagues who are waiting below.

 

The bright and shiny green leaves of Premna and the dancing twisted trunk with the gnarled texture is so beautiful, so elegant, and maybe due to this, then the name was linguistically rehabilitated and upgraded to “Shou Niang Zi” – “Long-life Lady“, credit to its dedication in bonsai ! 

It is a very fast growing tree, tough, easy to take care of and no problem of being bare-rooted or heavy root pruning. Premna is relatively high tolerated to different soil condition and climate, so it can easily grow in many sub-tropical countries. The leaves can be reduced to extremely small from approximately 9cm to 2 mm (!) by proper pruning and the foliation can be very compact. 

There are two more species found locally which names not exactly known and not good for bonsai. Beside the leaves characters, due to the growing condition, both are seldom found in good shape for bonsai although they mostly grow as larger trees. One grows in the swampy area that the local people call it vege-premna because the local people use it for cooking as soup that believed as good to cure bad body smell or to eliminate the fishy smell for seafood. The leaves are much thinner and floppy. The other one is called mountain-premna because it grows in the mountain; the leaves character is obviously different from the others, thin and difficult to be reduced in size.                                              

Due to the fast growing, Clip-and-Grow technique is recommended to obtain a perfect ramification and can be dramatically demonstrated in defoliated presentation. With the proper clip-and-grow method, the leaves size will get smaller on each section forming; so when the twigs structure is formed, the leaves size will reach the smallest stage as well.


The most common disease of Premna is the attack of white fly or other sucking insects on the leaves and scales that attack the bark that may cause the leaves wrinkled and dying back of the branches. Without clear reason, the problem of bugs attack on branches is mostly found on P. microphilla or the grafted trees, while the attack on leaves sometime happens to P. serratifolia (see the below pictures). So it requires frequent spraying of insecticide onto the leaves and branches; or by applying lime sulfur for prevention. Before doing this, all the leaves are suggested to be defoliated and the trunk or branches are cleaned by brushing.    

Indonesia is the paradise for the unlimited yamadori of Premna, mostly very strong in characters, gnarled texture with jin-shari and very dramatic in lines. It is a perfect species for the expressionistic styles e.g. Literati, Windswept, or Raft and for those who like the natural jin-shari; yet sufficient visual ability is needed to find the potential design and proper programming skill is necessary to achieve the mission.

Most of the materials have multi-dimensional options for different designs and sometimes total repositioning is necessary to find the right angle of composition.

We can hardly find other species suitable for bonsai with such unlimited characteristics to explore our creativity beside Pemphis and Junipers. In five years to come, I believe Premna will be one of the most favorite tropical bonsai in many countries.


by Robert Steven

* The same article with pictures can be viewed at :

                                         http://robert-steven.ofbonsai.org/articles/