it looks more like polyscias filicifolia to me (fern-leaf aralia).
ming aralia (polyscias fruticosa) has much finer foliage.

it says Ming Aralia on the tag unless the nursery got it wrong anyway still looks nice

ps the foliage does look much finer from a distance

This post was edited by Kings_Rose on Sat, Nov 1, 14 at 16:25

That's definitely a Ming - Polyscias fruticosa. This one's been in the ground for 10 years. Closeup of the leaves in the next post.

Closeup of the leaves.

i looked at a couple of sites selling it and i see that they're showing more coarse leafed plant like yours.
of course, this might be a new cultivar, easier to grow may be.
here's a pic of mine: left is P.fruticosa (ming) and right is P.filicifolia (fern-leaf).

fawnridge,
beautiful plant!
mine is 7 years indoors from about a 12" plant to 40" now.
quite hard to get leaves clear on the pic.

Wow..Very nice Aralias could mine ever be like the one you have Petrushka? mines only got one stem I would prune it to make it look more like a tree

I Would prune it to look like the one in the picture

don't do anything going into winter. in the normal way of events it'll drop some foliage in winter and will look sparse by spring. especially if you let it sit in temps lower then 68F and/or in dry air.
and don't put it too close to cold windows. but it needs bright light. so optimally south/west/east in that order.
that bonsai is a much older plant then yours.
i can't see the trunk well on yours, but it seems wooded. normally when you trim in spring for growth, you'd want to take 6-8" stem off top for propagation. it's best if it's semi-wooded: not totally green, but has some bark marks starting to show.
after some time they start suckering from the bottom and start looking like a grove - while yours seems to be meant as a standard. but it will sucker.
this bonsai plant is more likely 3 stems that have grown in together, since it's pretty hard to make the main trunk brunch, especially on young branches. they refuse point blank ;).
you see that wide trunk on the left with a thin branch growing from it? it doesn't look so good. but it'll look like that when you cut the main trunk severely. and it takes sev years for the new trunk to thicken up.
i'd say let it grow for a year first - get to know how to take care of it. 'cause when the plant is weak/ not grown well and you chop it off hard, it might not recover.

no I meant to say if I had your Aralia I would prune it like the Bonsai I don't plan on any pruning with mine anytime soon its too small/young

This post was edited by Kings_Rose on Sat, Nov 1, 14 at 20:59

the old trunks on bonsai are developed slowly by growing lots of foliage in larger pots and careful pruning of roots/branches to develop a well tapering trunk.
not by chopping off old trunks for the look. the healthy tree will have more foliage growing on side branches - in your pic you can just see top tufts. it looks just like the base of older tree that outlived it's 'propagation potential' and got recycled into 'instant bonsai'.
bonsai requires fanatical caring due a to very small root volume, twice a day watering might be required for aralias - i can't do that, i am away a lot.
i am working on developing side brunching. will be pruning the tips and clearing the base of suckers next spring.