Nice going Sam! Whereabouts along the coast? I keep my eyes geared for brooms around my area and will let you know when I spot some.

Any and all Abies grandis brooms are a gift, but Abies amabilis remains the holy grail. Nice work, Sam.

Thank you both for the kind words.

zephyrgal, the one by the water was actually found by the Puget Sound in Washington, but I imagine they would be pretty easy to spot in the sparse, windblown trees along the oceanic coast as well!

Dave, I couldn't agree more. I've been on several intentional hunts for Abies amabilis with no results. It's an elusive species, and brooming phenomenon is even more difficult to find! It's a shame that this, the Abies amabilis (literally, lovely fir) doesn't have several nice dwarf cultivars to represent the species..
Good luck in the hunt. If you and Will are ever going out in search, I would be delighted to join you.

-Sam

Hi Sam,
you're nifty hunter, WB from Abies grandis is a bit of a miracle, but also miracles do happen, congratulations
L+M S

Great finds, Sam. I really dig the first one, beach ball, and grand.
So will you have to climb these to get cuttings?

Jeff

What would be the human equivalent of these brooms? Would it be carbuncles, boils, hunchbacks, goiters, dwarves, stunted arms or legs, or elephantiasis? And would it be considered in bad taste to collect these deformities, display them in a people garden, and call in the neighbors with unbridled joy?

that's an interesting comparison, Mr. Pinetree30. Perhaps a human equivalent would be a Ripley's museum or a circus side-show, both of which are popular entertainment.

Then there's a dog comparison. I know a few people may keep a pet wolf, but most of us settle for something closer to a Yorkshire Terrier. Then there's that dog show in Westminster, right?

I view a collection of dwarf conifers as something that is rare and wonderful and quite approprate for anyone who is interested in studying gynosperms but lacks the 100 acres of land and 100 years of time necessary to plant and grow a proper arboretum.

Further, I respect the hell out of the broom hunters out there who have the eye necessary to find these things and courage to climb trees to collect propagation material.

~Dave

LOL, Ron! A garden of deformities, malformations, and mutations...that is one way of looking at the miniature bed, one which ignores the aspect of aesthetics. Looking at Sam's pictures of brooms as they exist in nature highlights the fact that they are manifest mutations, deformed organs in large trees, of no value to the parent tree. A thought experiment in this direction raises the question, might other species or kingdoms of life perceive human malformations as attractive and worthy of collecting? Some biologists harvest tumor tissue from cancer patients in order to create immortal cell lines, and grow these cell lines side-by-side in labs. Such a lab might be considered a veritable garden of delights!

However, this would ignore all the information provided by aesthetic sensibility which is the gardeners' muse, defining value in terms of beauty. Undeniably, miniature conifers are things of beauty in the garden, either as accents in the mixed bed or co-existing in a conifer bed. Another key distinction is that of pathology. Most WB mutations are not pathological in the sense that human malformations are, they simply result in a slower rate of growth. Those few that do result from pathological infection cannot usually undergo successful propagation. Thus, I can feel safe taking enjoyment from my aesthetic appreciation of WB-derived dwarf plants without feeling that I'm engaging in some sick relish of twisted bits of diseased nature. :o)

Oh yes, those are some very nice finds Sam!

-Alex

This post was edited by maple_grove on Tue, Nov 19, 13 at 13:08

Nice Sam!

My vote is for 'Beach Ball'!