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 Trembling
aspen A slender, graceful tree with smooth, greenish-white bark; grows up to 25 metres tall; distinctive leaves that quiver in the slightest breeze.
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| Leaves Smooth, round to triangular-shaped leaves with a flattened stalk that is longer than the leaf. They are dark green above, paler underneath and turn golden yellow or red in the fall. |
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| Flowers The flowers are borne in male and female catkins on separate trees. Male catkins are small, 2 to 3 centimetres long, and the female catkins are larger, 4 to 10 centimetres long. Fruit |
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Bark Smooth, green and doesn't peel. Where to find trembling aspen |
| Habitat Trembling aspen grows best on moist, well-drained soils, especially soils rich in calcium, such as those derived from limestone. It is known for its ability to sprout from root suckers and form clones of many individual stems. Aspen clones can often be distinguished in spring or fall when groups of stems leaf out or change colour all at once. These clones can get quite large and can be very long-lived. Some are estimated to be over 5,000 years old. |
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| Individual aspen stems are relatively short-lived and often succumb to disease at 50 years or so. These rotten stems provide excellent homes for cavity-nesting birds. Moose, elk, and deer also eat young aspen suckers. | |
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Uses Aspen wood is soft and brittle and not very durable. The Shuswap people used young aspen to make tent poles, but these apparently rotted after a couple of years. Rotten wood had its uses though. The Carrier people lined babies' cradles with it because it was soft and absorbent. Aspen branches boiled in water made a cleanser for guns, traps, and buckskins. Hunters would also wash themselves in this solution to remove human odour. The Okanagan people predicted storms when aspen leaves quivered in no perceptible wind. |
| After decades of being treated as a weed, the forest industry
now values aspen for pulp and waferboard. It is also exported as chopsticks. Notes |
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