"...the leaves of the Aspen are hinged upon leaf-stalks longer than the blade and flattened contrary to the plane of the blade, with the result that the leafstalk acts as a pivot and the foliage cannot but go into a panic whispering every time the slightest breeze flows down the canyon."
- Donald Culross Peattie, A Natural History of North American Trees.
Look
at
the
light
of
this
hour.
-Robert Greeley
"...show like girls in light summer dresses through the more somber dark green dresses of the spruce and pine."
- Ralph Ellison
Naturalist David Lukas describes the Aspen's state of being as theoretical immortality. An ice age tree, it is believed to harbor its seeds under the mother tree waiting for the climatic change to dispense them.
Aspens are a forest of trees that can be one tree that grows into colonies. The colony works together, helping other trees that are thirsty,in need of nutrients or minerals passed through the "wood wide web" of their root systems. These root systems are resilient to wildfires and pests. One colony in Utah is over 80,000 years old.
We could learn something from trees if we listen.
David Gallipoli
