Aspens by photosynthesis

Photography • Flowers/Plants • posted on Dec 09, 2012

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Description

I don't remember exactly where I took this, but it was somewhere between Mesa Verde National Park & Canyonlands. These aspens were actually a fair distance away & I took this with my telephoto at full extension... Aspens are extraordinary in that thousands of aspens in a grove may be genetically identical & all connected via their root system - so that they can, at some level, be considered one giant organism. There is one grove in Utah called Pando & this is what Wikipedia has to say about it: "Pando (Latin for "I spread"), also known as The Trembling Giant, is a clonal colony of a single male Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) determined to be a single living organism by identical genetic markers and one massive underground root system. The plant is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000,000 kg (6,600 short tons), making it the heaviest known organism. The root system of Pando, at an estimated 80,000 years old, is among the oldest known living organisms." Please zoom