[Michael j Campbell]

Can someone ID this one for me please. I have it for 6 years and it is still only 65cm high.

[Bolanthus]

Could this be Brachychiton rupestris??

[oron peri]

Yes it is,
Brachychiton rupestris.

Michael,
Looks as if it needs to be transplanted to a bigger pot, if you will leave it in a small pot it will become a Bonsai...

[Michael j Campbell]

Thanks Folks, didn't quite know what to do with it as I didn't know what it was. Will label and re-pot it immediately.

cheers.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Want a wonderfully weird tree, I think it would be great as a bonsai.

[Alisdair]

Fleur, another to try as a bonsai would be your Koelreuteria. I had half a dozen left over from a 2006 seed sowing, neglected in a lean compost in little 7 cm pots. I really didn't want to throw them out but had no use for them so they lingered on, year after year - until yesterday when Helena finally made me get rid of them. By then they were no taller than the length of my index finger.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

I can't grow bonsai any more but acting on your idea I can dig up a few seedlings to give to my English gardening relations to grow in pots. They're already doing very well with Judas trees.

[Joanna Savage]

Here's an old postcard photo of a champion bottle tree growing near the PO in Roma Queensland.
These days the trees are treasured and nurseries propagate them. It was not always so. The leaves and internal pith made excellent drought fodder for sheep.

[Joanna Savage]

And here's a much younger bottle tree (photo centre) growing in Anzac Square Brisbane. The coastal climate of Brisbane doesn't suit them so well, they are much happier in the dry inland 200-300 miles west of the coast.

I wish my photos were better and did justice to the magnificent trees.

[Alisdair]

What a magnificent plant, the first old chap is!