Wuhan (Day 4 - part 3)

At the Rock & Bonsai Museum, Michael gave us a tour. The museum has an incredible collection of rocks, fossils and bonsai gardens. Some wealthy families used to build rockeries and cultivate bonsai to enjoy nature. The museum is supposedly the former garden of a nobel.

The rockery (penjing):

One of the museum's most impressive displays is a giant rockery. A rockery is a landscaping feature which is made by arranging rocks and plants, often in a way which mimics a mountainous environment. In China, this art is over 1,000 years old and goes by the name of penjing (literally 'tray scenery').

As the name implies, the base of a rockery is rocks. Once they have been arranged, the plants are selected. Alpine plants are commonly used since they remain small and won't overwhelm the rocks. Some rockeries also feature bonsai and water features.


Figures (in this case, a temple) are often added to give the proper scales as part of the natural scenery.


A smaller penjing

Bonsai:

Bonsai is the Japanese pronunciation of the earlier Chinese term 'penzai' (pen means pot, and sai means tree). The first documention of this art dates back to the 7th century. Paintings found in the tomb of Prince Zhang Huai depict servants carrying a miniature landscape and a pot containing a tree. It was brought to Japan by imperial embassies during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907).

Penjing and penzai enable an artist to recreate (in miniature) parts of the natural landscape. Since the arrangements were created in special trays, they could be easily rotated and changed within a garden or a house.


The trees have been carefully selected and tended so that they develop into twisted and gnarled shapes reminiscent of their full-size counterparts in the wild.


The trees remain small because they are trimmed every 3 or 4 months. The roots are also cut every few years.


This 200-year-old tree is the oldest in the garden.

More garden:

The fossil forest portion of the garden was built in 2002. The smaller pieces are the branches of trees from 150 million years ago, from the western part of LiaoLing Province, Inner Mongolia, and Wuhan itself.


Petrified wood


Only the center tree is real petrified wood. The other two were built as supports.


A stand of bamboo. Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant on earth, growing up to 2 feet per day. The tallest bamboo reaches heights of 80 feet.


A glimpse of the garden from inside

Inside the museum:

The museum is filled with a wide array of rocks, fossils and art. Hubei Province is rich in minerals, with over 110 kinds. A mineral is an element or chemical compound that has been formed by geological processes. It is normally crystalline in structure. A rock is an combination of minerals.


Some large samples


All shapes, sizes and colors


Chrysanthemum Flower Stone is a combination of white Quartz and black Obsidian, formed by volcanic action.


This Yangtze River Stone looks more like a work of art than just simple river-polished sandstone.


Another Yangtze River Stone


A lovely piece of green Malachite with some blue Azurite


This piece is labelled as "Bamboo Stone"


Michael, our museum guide, stands next to the largest crystal in China, which weighs 11.3 tons. The building was actually built around it because it would have been too big to get through a normal-sized door.


Calcite is a very soft stone.


The main composition of Lingbi stones is limestone. Lingbi stones, found in the mountain areas of Lingbi county in Anhui province, were the most valued stones during the Song dynasty (960 - 1279). They are known for their hardness and dense textures that produce a light chime sound when tapped, hence they are also named resonant or chime rocks (bayinshi).


A set of chime rocks (or sonorous stones)


Scholar's rock or Gongshi. These stones of complex shapes have been collected and displayed in China for over 2,000 years. The strange shapes are believed to help in meditation and focussing the mind.


A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives an impact with the Earth's surface.


This artwork was created by carving the top layer of a color-layered rock.

Fossils:


Psittacosaurus is Greek meaning 'parrot lizard'. Note the powerful beak on the upper jaw.

Psittacosaurus lived in this area about 130 to 100 million years ago (the Early Cretaceous Period). The gazelle-sized bipedal herbivores were extremely early ceratopsians. Later ceratopsians include the famous Triceratops. While not so familiar to us as other dinosaurs, Psittacosaurus is one the most completely known groups. Fossils of over 400 individuals have been discovered, including many complete skeletons, from hatchling through adult.


Szechuanosaurus campi

Szechuanosaurus (Szechuan lizard) lived here during the Late Jurassic (around 160 - 145 million years ago). It resembled a small Allosaurus, with a weight of 220 - 330 pounds and a length of 27 feet.


Fossil crinoids

Crinoids are also known as sea lilies or feather-stars. These marine animals usually have a stem to attach themselves to a surface, but many live attached only as juveniles and become free-swimming as adults. There are only a few hundred known modern forms, but they were much more numerous both in species and numbers in the past.


A charming temple located across from the Rock & Bonsai Museum

return • continue