Quaking Aspen - q’ʷiʔq’ʷədiq’ʷac - (Populus tremuloides)
Quaking Aspen is a small, fast-growing deciduous tree with greenish-white bark with black scarring, on a long, slender trunk. Its small, triangularly round leaves have small teeth on the margins, and turn a brilliant bright yellow in the fall. Silvery catkins appear in spring which yield seeds that wind-disperse on cottony tufts. The Quaking Aspen will add a lovely scintillating backdrop to your yard with movement that begets a soft, pleasant sound produced by the trees “quaking” leaves. The sticky resin in the late winter buds can be steeped in olive oil to make the base for a soothing skin salve. The inner bark is rich in salicin, the synthesized precursor to modern aspirin, which can be used in remedies for ailments such as arthritis and fevers. A myriad of wildlife find this tree to be valuable as both a food source and as habitat.
Amazingly, the Quaking Aspen is known to be one of the largest and oldest living organisms on earth. The Quaking Aspen primarily reproduces in clones with new trees being sprouted from an already existing root system, meaning all the trees are interconnected as a single organism. In Utah one clonal colony was observed to have over 47,000 stems, weighing in totality 6,600 tons, and occupying 108 acres. Another clone in Minnesota has been estimated to be over 8,000 years old!
*Prefers full sun to partial shade
*Prefers moist, acidic well-drained soil
*Suitable in fire-damaged landscapes
*40 to 50 feet in height with a max height of 80 feet, 20 to 30 foot spread at maturity
*Fire Friendly in intermediate zone 2, 5-30ft
*Sold Bare Root
*Sold in bundles of 5
q’ʷiʔq’ʷədiq’ʷac *Lushootseed provided by the Puyallup Tribal Language Program and audio by Chris Briden, Puyallup Tribal member.
Image Attribution:
- Matt Lavin, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- Yellowstone National Park, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- James St. John, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- © "A Grove of Aspen Trees" by Intricate Explorer via Canva.com
- © "Colorado, United States of America; Aspen Trees (Populus tremuloides) and Mountains in Autumn in White River National Forest" by rick734 via Canva.com
- Matt Lavin, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons