It’s recently come to my attention that there are groups of enthusiasts participating in studies on the viability of species for bonsai use. There’s the Australian Plants as Bonsai study group,
http://farrer.riv.csu.edu.au/ASGAP/bonsai.html#bonsai, and there appears to be an Indian Bonsai study group,
www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Palace/7574/india.html . I’ve yet to find a North American study though. Has anyone looked into this sort of study? If so I’d be very interested in knowing the results, or at least some stats and info found out so far.
Perhaps if no one has started this study yet, may it be time to? There are certainly many North American species whose potential for bonsai has yet to be tapped.