Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides)

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Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides)

Quaking Aspen, sometimes also called Trembling Aspen, has the widest distribution of any tree species in North America. Most commonly, however, it is associated with the mountains of the western United States and the Northern Boreal Forest, particularly its southern fringe. Quaking Aspen is a successional species colonizing burns, logged areas, and other forms of disturbance. Successional species are supposed to be replaced by the climax species of the habitat, but some groves of Quaking Aspen can persist for very long periods. Quaking Aspen occurs, most often, in groves of trees. The trees in the groves are not individual trees but clones derived from a common underground root stock.

Quaking Aspen gets its name from its leaves which tremble in the breeze because of air pressure on their flattened leafstalks and leaves.

Characteristic Features: Quaking Aspen has a distinctive white trunk with black or gray patches. The bark is white, smooth, and has a slightly chalky appearance. The male and female flowers are borne on separate trees and are arranged in hanging catkins. The leaves are ovate to round, but pointed at the apex. Leaves are shiny green above and dull green underneath. The leavestalks are flattened.

Similar Species: Paper Birch is another dominant deciduous tree of the Northern Boreal Forest and shares white colored bark with the Quaking Aspen. The bark of Paper Birch, however peals in papery strips. The leaves are more elongate than those of Quaking Aspen and are yellow-green on both surfaces. The leafstalks are not flattened in Paper Birch.

Habitat: Quaking Aspen is found in many different habitats and on a variety of soil types. The species is commonest in the Northern Boreal Forest and the Montane Forests of Western North America between the Pine and Spruce-Fir altitudinal zones.

Distribution: Quaking aspen grows singly and in multi-stemmed clones over 111° of longitude and 48° of latitude for the widest distribution of any native tree species in North America. The range extends from Newfoundland and Labrador west across Canada along the northern limit of trees to northwestern Alaska, and southeast through Yukon and British Columbia. Throughout the Western United States it is mostly in the mountains from Washington to California, southern Arizona, Trans-Pecos Texas, and northern Nebraska. From Iowa and eastern Missouri it ranges east to West Virginia, western Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Quaking aspen is also found in the mountains of Mexico, as far south as Guanajuato.