Excellent treaty on bonsai history and its discovery and establishment in the west

This is the most authoritative and extensive source I’ve ever come across about the history of Bonsai, its discovery and establishment in the west. It is particularly interesting to note that back in the 1800’s westerner’s descriptions of bonsai in China and Japan already describe the use of ‘modern’ bonsai substrates, air layering, wires and ‘other mechanical means’ to bend branches even in China (which most often only associate with clip and grow techniques). By the way, they also appreciated deadwood on deciduous trees and created it using ants! - Really worth reading it.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.543.8959&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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Thanks for sharing. When was this published, do you know?

My guess would be late 1990s or early 2000s, based solely on date of references cited in the publication.

good guess @ndavila80, the latest reference cites is from 2000 so the article was written at least as late as 2000.