Bonsai Trivia
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59 free Bonsai trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This bonsai trivia quiz starts with the basics — what the word means, how bonsai differs from dwarfing, why the Japanese tradition has no indoor bonsai — and works through the named styles (formal upright, cascade, broom, windswept, raft, forest), deadwood techniques like jin and shari, akadama soil, glazed versus unglazed pots and the rules of a formal display. Then it goes to the history and the famous trees: the 1195 scroll that first shows dwarfed pines in Japan, the Noh play about a samurai who burned his trees for a monk, the 500-year-old Sandai Shogun pine in the Imperial Palace, the Yamaki Pine that survived Hiroshima, John Naka's Goshin, Omiya Bonsai Village and the Kokufu-ten exhibition. About a third of the questions are easy warm-ups; the rest will test even growers who know their moyogi from their shakan. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's bonsai, penjing and museum pages and the sources they cite, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the Japanese word 'bonsai' literally mean?
Pot planting
Bonsai literally means 'pot planting' or 'tray planting': bon is the tray or pot and sai is the planting. The term displaced older Japanese names for dwarf trees in containers.
Q 02The Japanese art of bonsai grew out of which older Chinese practice?
Penjing
Chinese tree penjing allows wilder shapes and brightly coloured, creatively shaped pots, whereas bonsai favours simpler forms and plain containers.
Q 03What is Korea's equivalent art of miniature potted trees called?
Bunjae
Bunjae is Korea's art of miniature potted trees; the word is the Korean reading of the same two characters, 盆栽, that Japanese reads as bonsai.
Q 04A tree collected from the wild for training as bonsai is known by what Japanese term?
Yamadori
Yamadori, literally 'taken from the mountains', is a tree collected from the wild for training; such trees are prized because they arrive with decades of natural character.
Q 05What Japanese term names the spread of surface roots at the base of a bonsai?
Nebari
Nebari is the visible flare of surface roots where the trunk meets the soil; a wide, even nebari is prized because it makes a small tree look old and stable.
Q 06Which picture scroll is the earliest known to depict dwarfed potted trees in Japan?
Saigyo Monogatari Emaki
The Saigyo Monogatari Emaki, a Kamakura-period scroll on the poet-monk Saigyō, holds the earliest known Japanese image of dwarfed trees in pots; the 1309 Kasuga Gongen Genki E shows them on a workbench.
Q 07Around the 14th century, dwarf potted trees in Japan were called 'hachi no ki', which means what?
The bowl's tree
Hachi no ki means 'the bowl's tree': hachi is a bowl or fairly deep pot and ki is tree. The term named Japan's dwarf potted trees for centuries before 'bonsai' replaced it.
Q 08In the Noh play Hachi no Ki, a poor samurai sacrifices his three last dwarf potted trees for what purpose?
To burn as firewood for a travelling monk
The monk is an official in disguise who later rewards him with three estates named for the plum, pine and cherry he burned.
Q 09The Sandai Shogun no Matsu, a five-needle pine in the Japanese imperial collection, is thought to be at least how old?
500 years
The Sandai Shogun no Matsu is thought to be at least 500 years old, has been in the palace collection for generations, and is counted among Japan's National Treasures.
Q 10The Sandai Shogun pine in the emperor's collection was cared for by which shogun?
Tokugawa Iemitsu
Its name means 'the third shogun', which is exactly who Iemitsu was in the Tokugawa line.
Q 11The Japanese emperor whose 1868 move to Tokyo saw 'Giant Bonsai' displayed at his palace was which ruler?
Meiji
Emperor Meiji moved his court to Tokyo in 1868, and 'Giant Bonsai' large enough to fill the palace's grand rooms were displayed inside and outside the Meiji Palace.
Q 12Which shaping material appeared in bonsai practice around 1910, replacing string, rope and burlap?
Wire
Wire appeared around 1910 in place of string, rope and burlap; zinc-galvanised steel wire came first, and costly copper wire was reserved for trees with real potential.
Q 13Which bonsai tool did Masakuni I design to leave a shallow indentation that heals scarlessly?
The concave cutter
Q 21The 'broom' bonsai style, hokidachi, with a straight trunk and ball crown, is typically used for which trees?
Elms
Elms, above all the zelkova of the elm family, suit hokidachi: the straight trunk splits about a third of the way up into fine twigs that form a crown like an upturned broom.
Q 22What is the Japanese name for the windswept style, a tree battered by wind from one side?
Fukinagashi
Fukinagashi, the windswept style, sets every branch and often the trunk streaming to one side, like a tree on a mountain ridge or exposed shoreline battered by a constant wind.
Q 23The raft style, ikadabuki, mimics what natural event?
A tree toppled on its side sprouting new trunks
Masakuni I's concave cutter removes a branch leaving a shallow hollow that bark closes over without a bump; his 1920s–1930s designs were the first steel tools made specifically for bonsai.
Q 14What is Japan's most prestigious bonsai exhibition, held every February in Tokyo since 1934?
Kokufu-ten
Kokufu-ten, staged by the Nippon Bonsai Association at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno Park, is juried rather than open, and its 97th edition was held in February 2023.
Q 15The first World Bonsai Convention was held in 1980 in which Japanese city?
Osaka
Osaka hosted the 1980 gathering counted as the first World Bonsai Convention; the World Bonsai Friendship Federation was founded nine years later and has held its own conventions every four years since 1989.
Q 16Under what title was Yoshimura and Halford's 1957 bonsai 'bible for westerners' later reissued?
The Art of Bonsai
The Art of Bonsai is Tuttle's later title for The Japanese Art of Miniature Trees and Landscapes, the 1957 book Yuji Yoshimura wrote in English with his student Giovanna Halford; it ran to more than thirty printings.
Q 17Which Japanese volcanic clay, sold in graded granules, is the staple of bonsai soil mixes worldwide?
Akadama
Akadama, 'red ball earth', is a granular clay mined from volcanic deposits in Japan and sold in graded sizes; its yellow counterpart Kanuma is reserved for azaleas and other lime-hating plants.
Q 18In the formal upright style, chokkan, what shape does the trunk take?
Straight and tapering
In chokkan the trunk is straight and tapering, rising vertically with an even taper from base to apex, while the branches thin regularly from thickest at the bottom to finest at the top.
Q 19In the full cascade style, kengai, where does the apex of the tree end up?
Below the base of the pot
In a full cascade (kengai) the apex drops below the base of the pot, mimicking a tree growing over water or down a mountainside; a semi-cascade (han-kengai) stops at or just beneath the rim.
Q 20What is the Japanese name of the informal upright style, with visible curves in the trunk?
Moyogi
Moyogi, the informal upright, has a trunk that curves gently as it rises and tapers toward an apex set above the base; it is the most common style because most trees lend themselves to it.
Growers create it by laying a trunk flat in the soil so the upward branches root and become a grove.
Q 24In the forest or group style, yose ue, how many trees are typically planted?
An odd number
An odd number is the convention for yose ue because it reads as natural and keeps the eye from pairing trees off; famous forests run to eleven trees and more.
Q 25What is the difference between the sekijoju and ishitsuki styles?
Roots wrap the stone vs roots grow inside it
In root-over-rock the rock is essentially a pedestal; in ishitsuki the rock is the pot.
Q 26In deadwood technique, what does 'jin' refer to?
Bark stripped from a whole branch
Shari is the counterpart on the trunk, simulating scars from a broken limb or lightning strike.
Q 27Which bonsai principle says the scar from a removed branch must be concealed and wire must leave no marks?
No trace of the artist
'No trace of the artist' holds that the grower's hand must not show: pruning scars are concealed and no marks from shaping are left, so the viewer believes they see nature.
Q 28Bonsai aesthetics discourage which quality in branch and root placement?
Symmetry
Radial or bilateral symmetry looks manufactured; a slightly off-centre composition reads as natural.
Q 29Which Japanese aesthetic concept, beauty in imperfection and transience, informs bonsai design?
Wabi-sabi
Many formal rules of bonsai exist to help a tree express wabi-sabi or the gentle sadness of mono no aware.
Q 30A traditional indoor bonsai display has the tree, a hanging scroll, and what third element?
A companion plant
The shitakusa companion plant stands for the foreground, the scroll for the background, and all three are chosen to evoke a season.