National Bonsai and Penjing Museum

The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the US National Arboretum holds a collection of over 150 miniature trees, some of them centuries old. The museum is divided into three pavilions — Japanese bonsai, Chinese penjing, and North American bonsai — and the outdoor display areas are arranged as formal garden spaces.

The Arboretum itself, 446 acres in the northeastern corner of the city, is one of Washington's best-kept secrets — a botanical research garden with spectacular collections of azaleas (most striking in April and May), Japanese maples, hollies, and the strange and beautiful National Capitol Columns: Corinthian columns from the original US Capitol, removed in 1958 during an expansion, now standing in a meadow amid a reflecting pool.

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Among the museum's bonsai is a Japanese white pine that was being cultivated in Hiroshima in 1945 and survived the atomic bomb. The Yamaki family, who had been growing the tree for generations, donated it to the United States as a bicentennial gift in 1976 — more than 30 years after the bombing. The tree is now nearly 400 years old.