Bonsai of Ficus Retusa.
Safe delivery in a wooden crate.

• Height: 16 cm (excluding pot)

• Width: 32 cm

• Trunk: 22 cm

• Pot: 14.5 x 16 x 16 cm

Photos taken in May 2026

The Ficus Retusa bonsai up close

This Ficus Retusa bonsai has the look that draws people to the species in the first place: a smooth, swelling grey trunk, a low crown of glossy oval leaves, and surface roots that grip the soil like fingers. The trunk does most of the talking. It widens at the base into a solid nebari and tapers with the kind of movement that makes a small tree read as a much older one.

At 16 cm tall, 32 cm across and with a 22 cm trunk line, it sits in the shohin range, the size of bonsai you can lift in one hand and turn slowly to study from every angle. Trees this small reward close viewing, and the Ficus rewards it more than most, because the bark and the roots are right there at eye level.

A fig with real character

The Ficus Retusa, also listed as Ficus microcarpa, grows wild across South and Southeast Asia, where mature trees drop curtains of aerial roots and climb over walls and old stone. Worked as bonsai, that same vigour shows up as quick healing, willing back-budding and a trunk that thickens with conviction. It is the tree experienced growers often hand to a beginner, not because it asks little of you, but because it answers so plainly.

The fig has been shaped as bonsai and penjing for centuries, and in Europe the Retusa has become the indoor tropical bonsai, the one that carries a hint of a much warmer climate into a living room in Southern Italy.

About this tree

What you see in the photographs is the exact plant you receive, pot included, sent in a wooden crate so it travels safely. Every Ficus grows its own way, so the trunk movement and the spread of the roots here belong to this specimen alone.