Round leaves hung on flattened stalks, so the whole crown shimmers and rustles in the faintest breeze
Aspen — Populus tremula. Its specific epithet means 'trembling'.
Nature · Trees
Aspen
Deciduous · to 25 m
Populus tremula — Salicaceae
The aspen is the tree you hear before you see: its leaves are hung on flattened stalks so that the least breeze sets the whole crown rustling and shimmering. A suckering poplar of damp woods and Highland glens, it spreads clonally from its roots, and in Scotland it is a scarce and much-restored species.
How to know it
How to spot them
- ▸Flattened leaf stalk, so the round leaves tremble and flash in the faintest wind
- ▸Nearly circular leaves with coarse, blunt, wavy teeth; bronze when young, yellow in autumn
- ▸Bark smooth and pale grey-green with rows of dark diamond-shaped lenticels
- ▸Suckers freely, forming clumps of genetically identical stems
- ▸Long grey, drooping catkins in March before the leaves; dioecious
How to know it
Spreads by root suckers into clonal clumps, and is a scarce and much-restored species in Highland glens
Aspen.
Smooth pale grey-green bark marked with rows of dark diamond-shaped breathing pores
Aspen.
Its light wood made matchsticks, and its shivering leaves were said to have made up the Cross
Aspen — the tree 'trembling with shame' in the legend.
Pando, a vast clonal colony in Utah, is the American counterpart of this genus
Aspen. Pando is a clone of Populus tremuloides, the quaking aspen.
The rare dark bordered beauty moth and a scarce Scottish hoverfly of its dead wood depend entirely on it
Aspen — the aspen hoverfly, Hammerschmidtia ferruginea.
Quick-fire facts
- •Populus tremula — tremula means 'trembling'; the American cousin is Populus tremuloides, the quaking aspen
- •The flattened petiole is the mechanism: it lets each leaf twist freely, so even still air sets them moving
- •In the willow family, Salicaceae, along with poplars and willows generally
- •It suckers vigorously, so a stand may be one clone; Pando in Utah, a clone of the American quaking aspen, is among the largest known organisms
- •Dioecious, with separate male and female trees, and it rarely sets seed in Britain, spreading mainly by suckers
- •In Scotland it is scarce and a target of native woodland restoration; the aspen hoverfly depends on its dead wood
- •Aspen wood is light and does not splinter, so it was used for matchsticks, wagon bottoms and oars
- •Folklore claimed the Cross was made of aspen, and that the tree has trembled ever since
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Aspen (Populus tremula)