Quaking Wild

When I first moved West in the 1970s I fell in love with aspen trees. They symbolized wildness and spontaneity, new adventures and breaking away from entrenched paths.

My youthful anthropomorphizing aside, it’s hard not to like an aspen grove with its fluttering leaves and tall white trunks. Apparently, many species feel the same. Almost 200 species are supported by aspen groves!

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is the widest ranging tree in America. It is in the Willow Family along with cottonwoods, poplars and of course, willows. Entire groves are actually the same being. They reproduce by root shoots so every tree in a grove has the same DNA.

In the fall you can distinguish where one grove ends and another begins by each grove’s unique color. The largest living being on the planet is an aspen grove in Utah. It covers 106 acres and weighs 6,600 tons. Scientists have estimated its age at 80,000 years.

Aspens survive all but intense fires. Though the tree above ground will die, the roots quickly sprout new shoots. Root-sprouted aspens have much more energy to draw from than seed-sprouted aspens, so they grow faster and get re-established sooner. This is good for soil stability and soil temperatures and for the critters that depend upon aspen.

Don’t be confused if you notice different colors on aspen trunks. They can actually photosynthesize through their bark, which turns their trunk light green. If they are in direct sun, aspens make their own sunscreen, which looks and feels like white powder.

Aspen leaves tremble because their leaf stalks are flat. In stiff winds this design enables clusters of leaves to lean against each other, reducing drag on and damage to branches. That scientific explanation is great but I am still inclined to romanticize our quaking aspens. Their fluttering always lightens my mood and makes everything seem possible.

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