Faul Preserve - Populus tremuloides | Quaking aspen

Botanical Family: Salicaceae

Scientific Name: Populus tremuloides

Common Names: quaking aspen, golden aspen, trembling aspen, mountain aspen, aspen, trembling poplar, Alamo Blanco

Botanical Description:

Populus tremuloides is a medium-sized deciduous tree that grows up to 50 feet tall, although some specimens reach heights over 100 feet (1, 2). The habit of young trees is narrow and pyramidal, while mature trees develop a narrow, rounded crown among dense thickets of clones (3). Bark is thin, greenish-white, cream, or white in juvenile trees, darkening to brown or gray at the base and furrowing with age (1). Black horizontal rings, lenticels, and scattered black knots occur along the trunk, resembling eyes (3, 4). The leaves are ovate, toothed, and laterally flattened, occurring on petioles and characteristically “trembling” in response to every breeze (2, 3). Both the green upper leaf surface and paler underside will turn a brilliant golden-yellow in fall, matching the golden petioles. The male and female flowers are silver, drooping catkins that appear separately on different trees, and are rarely produced (3, 4). Female flowers will develop into small, drooping clusters of the round, conical, green fruits. The capsules will split when mature to reveal the soft, cottony seed (5). However, most quaking aspen produce asexually through a suckering root system. The elaborate, spreading root system of quaking aspen can connect hundreds of clones, with a male tree in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah representing the world’s most massive known organism, possessing over 47,000 stems and an outstanding estimated age of 1 million years (6).

Ecological Significance:

Quaking aspen is a major component of the Eastern Forest, Western Forest, and White Spruce-Aspen forest ecosystems (7). It provides breeding, foraging, and resting habitat for countless wildlife species, including hare, black bears, deer, elk, ruffled grouse, woodcock, and smaller species of wildlife (6, 7). White-tailed elk, deer, cottontail rabbits, goats, red squirrels, meadow voles, muskrats, moose, and beavers prey upon the bark, leaves, twigs, and catkins, while beaver also utilize the branches in dam construction (2, 6). Quaking aspen hosts an estimated 138 species of insect, with 98 confirmed species including western tiger swallowtail (Papilio rutulus), mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), and Lorquin's admiral (Limenitis lorquini) (8). Many birds also construct nests among the branches and trunk, including the red-breasted nuthatch, yellow warbler, warbling vireo, and northern flicker, feeding upon the bark, sap, buds, catkins, or hosted insects (2). Finally, aspens provide numerous ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, soil stabilization, and fire restoration. The abundant leaf litter provides nutrition to the soil and a valuable layer of hummus, reducing moisture evaporation and assisting groundwater percolation (6). The leaves produce a phenolic compound that deters insects from herbivory, and the trees rapidly settle in bare environments (3). As a result, quaking aspen is widely utilized in rehabilitation and restoration projects across a variety of habitats (6).

Ethnobotanical Value:

In addition to being used as livestock browse, quaking aspen has been valued for other culinary, cultural, and medicinal purposes. P. tremuloides is considered one of the most important tinder trees in the eastern United States and is primarily used for particleboard and pulp. The species has been valued to create paper, boxes, crates, pallets, and sauna benches (3, 6, 9). However, furniture is not usually created, due to the low shock durability and weakness of the wood (6). Quaking aspen can be consumed raw or cooked, dried, or ground into flour. The sap can be drained and used as a drink or to flavor wild strawberries, while the catkins can be consumed raw or cooked (9). Medicinally, quaking aspen has been employed by many Indigenous tribes, including the Abenaki (Wαpánahki), Apache, Nuxalk, Niitsitapi, Saāwithiniwak (Nîhithaw), Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois), Nlaka'pamux, and numerous other peoples (10). The species contains anti-inflammatory salicylates, from which aspirin is derived (9). A decoction of the bark has been used to treat various ailments such as heartburn, hemorrhoids, intestinal parasites, venereal diseases, cuts and scrapes, and to relieve pain during childbirth (3, 10). Internally, the bark has treated rheumatism, arthritis, gout, fever, menstrual cramping, and other lower back pains. The leaf buds have been used as a salve to treat coughs, cold symptoms, and irritated nostrils, while an infusion of the inner bark has also been valued as a cough treatment (10).

Photos (click for attribution):

Distance | Bark | Canopy | Leaves