Vine's Flora Friday: The Quaking Aspen

 

The Quaking Aspen, also known as the Trembling Aspen, is a glorious deciduous tree that creates beautiful scenic views when they cover the landscape with their orange leaves.

This tree gets its renowned name from its leaves higher tendency to "quake" and flutter. The reason for this is the stems of the leaves. These stems are flat, while other trees' stems are usually round. So at the slightest breeze, the leaves tremble and flutter with more vigor than other plants.

Quaking Aspens have two ways to reproduce. One is the minuscule seeds housed in a fluffy substance inside a "shell". Ironically, Trembling Aspens rarely reproduce from these seeds. They have a much more interesting, strange way of creating more of them selves. They reproduce by sending out roots that grow up, break the surface and culminate into a new tree. The new tree is an exact clone of the original tree, and share the same root system. Thus they may be considered to be the same organism. This reproduction system leads them to develop large colonies, and these colonies are said to be the same creature*. One such organism, dubbed "Pando**", holds the record for the largest organism on the planet, weighing in at 13 million pounds and covering 1.6 acres.

Quaking Aspens range all the way up to parts of Alaska and Northern Canada. The only hindering factor is the aspens' inability to endure permafrost.

This fascinating tree is an amazing creation from the hand of the Ancient One, a plant to be respected and enjoyed. 

*See http://discovermagazine.com/1993/oct/thetremblinggian285#.UjtCMLyYNFw
** Latin for "I spread"