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!!" # $ " %&’ &! ( ) ) ( * +" , & - .&/0&’ 1 &2334 +" 5 % Turkey Day is soon upon me - Since 95% of those folks that celebrate Thanksgiv- ing do so with turkey as the main attraction - I feel comfortable calling it Turkey Day... When this newsletter drops in your mail box, Turkey Day will be nothing more than a pleasant memory and possibly a few extra pounds. To back up Cliff’s article - I’ve included some pictures of squirrel caches… A very good ’Minnesotan’ friend is often challenging my use of the term ’Aspen.’ He asks; “Where do you think you’re at - Colorado? It’s ’popple’ around here!” Well, we’re going to take a closer look at that thing called popple. And, finally - Gary is giving you an early heads up - What does STSC stand for? And, where is the STSC in 2007? Enjoy! Logging in Minnesota dates back to the 1830’s and many of us can trace our roots back to ancestors that worked in and around these camps. Some of the first logging operations were set up on the Saint Croix River near Marine on the Saint Croix. These commer- cial logging operations focused almost exclusively on the large tracts of eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) across Minnesota and Wisconsin. Lumber was in great demand to build the towns and farms springing up across the Midwest. Building materials (pine lumber) were used up as quickly as it could be produced and demand far exceeded supply. It was only a matter of decades before Minnesota’s Pine forests were cut over and by 1929 the large tracts of pine were gone and the last of the big pine mills in Northern Minnesota closed its doors. ! " 6 &$’ , 75 ,
16

2006_Volume13_Issue4

Apr 09, 2016

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- !!" (* +" #$ " ,& 6&$'' ,75 !" .&/0&'1 &2334+"5% And, finally - Gary is giving you an early heads up - What does STSC stand for? And, where is the STSC in 2007? Enjoy! %&'&!( )) A very good ’Minnesotan’ friend is often challenging my use of the term ’Aspen.’ He asks; “Where do you think you’re at - Colorado? It’s ’popple’ around here!” Well, we’re going to take a closer look at that thing called popple.
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Page 1: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

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Turkey Day is soon upon me - Since 95% of those folks that celebrate Thanksgiv-ing do so with turkey as the main attraction - I feel comfortable calling it Turkey Day... When this newsletter drops in your mail box, Turkey Day will be nothing more than a pleasant memory and possibly a few extra pounds.

To back up Cliff’s article - I’ve included some pictures of squirrel caches…

A very good ’Minnesotan’ friend is often challenging my use of the term ’Aspen.’ He asks; “Where do you think you’re at - Colorado? It’s ’popple’ around here!” Well, we’re going to take a closer look at that thing called popple.

And, finally - Gary is giving you an early heads up - What does STSC stand for? And, where is the STSC in 2007?

Enjoy!

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Logging in Minnesota dates back to the 1830’s and many of us can trace our roots back to ancestors that worked in and around these camps. Some of the first logging operations were set up on the Saint Croix River near Marine on the Saint Croix. These commer-cial logging operations focused almost exclusively on the large tracts of eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) across Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Lumber was in great demand to build the towns and farms springing up across the Midwest. Building materials (pine lumber) were used up as quickly as it could be produced and demand far exceeded supply. It was only a matter of decades before Minnesota’s Pine forests were cut over and by 1929 the large tracts of pine were gone and the last of the big pine mills in Northern Minnesota closed its doors.

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Page 2: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

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A Survey to Look Forward to! Soon - in your very own mailbox - a survey will arrive. You might wonder why?

And, while the answer is quite simple - the need is very important, there are things Gary and Dave need to know…

We need to know:

What this newsletter means to you… How we can better serve you…

And I need you to know:

Gary and Dave need help… Putting together the newsletter…

Reaching the TCAs effectively … Timely… Planning some milestone events in the near future!

So, be ready!

Please provide a few answers and please consider taking your commitment further!

Saint Paul TCA Core Course - 2007!

The dates are set for February 10, 17, 24 and March 3, 10.

A course in Saint Peter is being planned for February 17, 24 and March 3,10,17

Please help us out and advertise these upcoming courses!

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Page 3: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

�������‘Volunteer’ spruce & pine from seed a rarity

Putting down roots By Cliff Johnson, Carver/Scott Master Gardener

I was complaining to a friend that one of my least-rewarding gardening chores each summer is hand-pulling a seemingly endless crop of tree seedlings that pepper my garden plots.

A bumper crop of tiny basswood, pagoda dogwood, buckthorn, elm and amur maple trees appears out of nowhere each year and each seedling comes at-tached to surprisingly deep roots. What looks to be a simple weed extraction fre-quently leads to a stripped stem and sore thumb and forefinger.

My gardening friend shared her similar experience and then asked the ques-tion that caused me to spend more hours than I intended searching for an answer.

“Pagoda dogwood are native trees so I can’t lump them in the same enemy category as amur maple and buckthorn,” she explained. “I would rank pagoda dog-wood on a similar but not quite so noxious list as American elm, eastern red cedar and silver maple -- fondly known in my family as the ‘nevergreens’ -- the latter of which has turned my garden entirely tan with its seeds.

“Someone once told me we will never have to worry about a loss of elms, since the seed has something like a 99.9% germination rate. And nevergreen seed-lings are simply everywhere.”

Then she asked me her vexing question: “Why don't we ever find seedling spruce or fir? Even pine seedlings seem to be very few and far between. I'd love to see a Cliff Johnson article on this topic!”

The scientific answer is probably out there somewhere in a textbook or on the internet but I can only offer opinions and speculation about why some woody plants spring up everywhere while others seem to never reproduce naturally from seed.

The answer has to do with seed dissemination, germination and seedling vigor. Seeds of some tree species are spread around by birds and wind, sprout quickly and easily, and send roots down deep to overcome dry periods. Other tree seeds -- primarily conifers -- are less prolific and have much more difficulty germi-nating and growing, at least here in southern Minnesota.

In the “propagates easy” category, maple, elm and basswood seeds flutter or rain down each season and require just a few days to germinate. Buckthorn seeds are contained in the small black berries that pass through birds like prunes through people and, as a result, get planted randomly and seemingly everywhere.

Conifer seeds are contained in cones. Pine, fir, spruce and other conifers have a harder time getting their seeds spread around and situated in a site that per-mits germination and growth.

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Page 4: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

�������‘Volunteer’ spruce & pine from seed a rarity

In the wild, many conifer seeds germinate and grow only when for-est fires crack open cones and burn away litter on the forest floor to ex-pose a suitable seedbed.

“Most conifers need exposed or scarified soil in order to get good seed/soil contact and germination,” explains Patrick Weicherding, Univer-sity of Minnesota extension forestry specialist. “In forestry practices this is done either mechanically or ecologically using prescribed burning as a management tool.”

Mike Zins, recently retired University of Minnesota extension horticulturist, offered these opinions about why conifer seedlings are so uncommon: “My obser-vations on conifer reproduction point to two things concerning seed germination and seedling success. One is the type of soil, which directly has a relationship on the other, which is competition from grass.

“I have noticed that on clay-based soils, any seeds landing on hard ground have a tough time of it. Also the ‘better’ soils support much more competitive vege-tation, especially grass. On sandier soils up north, for example, pine and spruce seedlings often line roadside ditches where they thrive and competitive grasses don't.

“I have collected small Korean pine seedlings under large trees where the soil is sandy. I rarely find a pine or spruce seedling competing against the elements in my yard (Carver County) even though the trees have been seeding profusely for years. The same is true at the Arboretum.”

Zins added that squirrels and rodents are heavy consumers of conifer seeds before cones are covered by leaf litter or snow.

I was fascinated by a conclusion in a U.S. Forest Service report on red-pine reproduction that I read on the internet. “Given the right kind of fire, the following conditions would be required to ensure the establishment of a new red-pine stand: A good red-pine seed crop, not too thick a layer of ashes, weather conditions favor-able for seed germination and seedling establishment, and subsequent freedom from fire for several decades. Based on observations of old-growth stands in north-central Minnesota such a combination of conditions in a given locality may occur about once in 75 to 100 years.”

So Jackie, there are some thoughts on why we don’t see many volunteer pine and spruce seedlings.

###

More than 200 previous Putting Down Roots columns can be viewed at Cliff Johnson’s website: www.puttingdownroots.net. The Master Gardener program is a part of the University of Minne-sota Extension Service. For more information, or to ask a garden-ing question, call 952-442-4496.

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Page 5: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

������Big Trees...

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Page 6: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

������ In once-canopied village, a push to save trees and plant more (VT)

In this hilltop hamlet, shade trees have always been part of the appeal.

For decades, giant elms, oaks, maples and butternuts towered over roads and homes, providing shade, fall foliage and a picturesque complement in a place that draws leaf peepers, photographers and the occasional filmmaker looking for a New England backdrop.

Disease, old age and storm damage have taken a toll in recent years, though, and now the town is embarking on a tree maintenance plan aimed at preserving what's left -- taking inventory, propping up ailing trees and plant-ing for the future.

It has drawn up a 100-year plan aimed at restoring the lush greenery that once canopied Bayley-Hazen Road and other roads, established a Village Tree Board and begun identifying the damaged trees that can be saved.

It's a big job -- and it won't be done quickly.

"We have some sugar maples and oaks in the village that are in their last stages," said Julie Lang, who chairs the newly established Village Tree Board. "It's a good time to be looking at these replacements and realize it's not just an overnight initiative. It'll take decades before we realize the cano-pies and the greenery we had 40 years ago."

In Vermont's rural communities, trees are often taken for granted.

Few have begun addressing the problem of aging trees, which can be dan-gerous when lightning or storms hit, according to Danielle Fitzko, urban and community forestry coordinator for the state Department of Forest Parks and Recreation.

"People sometimes don't look at trees as actual infrastructure, like roads and sidewalks, that need to be maintained and funded. We enjoy them but don't realize we have to be caring for them. What Peacham did is what we recom-mend -- doing an inventory and a management plan. They identified species, looked at condition and made a plan for how to move forward and how to ac-tually manage this resource."

For a place with 665 people and a $600,000 annual budget, it wasn't easy.

Associated Press via the Boston Globe,

John Curran,

October 19, 2006�

Page 7: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

�������In once-canopied village, a push to save trees and plant more (VT)

After obtaining a $3,000 state grant to draw up a management plan, the village rustled up an equal amount's worth of volunteer contributions and took stock of 400 trees, laying the framework for cabling and repair of 65 damaged ones and the future planting of flowering crabapple trees on the roads leading into the vil-lage.

Now, the town earmarks about $3,000 annually for trees, augmenting that with volunteer labor and other contributions. It's a start.

Education is one element of the plan -- letting property owners know that there are less expensive, less destructive ways to save trees than to cut them down when they begin to have problems.

"It's gotten so people have been afraid of their trees. A branch breaks off, and before you know it, they're having a 40-inch maple that's been there a hundred years and they have it taken down," said Dave Jacobs, a landscape architect from East Peacham working as a volunteer in the effort.

Instead of spending $1,000 to tear down such a tree, it can take only a few hun-dred dollars to prune or cable the tree and render it safe, he said.

There are other benefits, too.

"The aesthetic of a canopied street is that it gives the sense of a village, and it slows traffic down. It makes for a setting, a character. You're driving through an open field of corn and suddenly you reach a place with houses and nice big trees canopying over the roadway," said Jacobs.

Residents are behind the effort -- for various reasons.

"I want the road looking narrower so the cars go slower," said Stan Fickes, 45. "People drive 50 miles-an-hour in a 30 mile-an-hour zone in front of my house. I have five children."

"It's a beautiful little town, and the people here have wanted to keep the trees," said Nancy Bundgus, 90. "I'm as old as some of them, you know."

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

Page 8: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

�������Emblem of the West is dying, and no one can figure out why

The aspen, an emblematic tree of the West and the most widely distributed tree in North America, is rapidly and mysteriously dying.

Its rapid decline is bewildering scientists and forest ecologists, who say they cannot pinpoint a cause.

“What’s causing the aspen to die?” asked Wayne Shepperd, a veteran re-searcher at the Rocky Mountain Research Center of the United States Forest Service. “We don’t know. Maybe this has been there all along, and we haven’t noticed it before, or maybe it’s something new.”

There is no shortage of suspects. Forest experts, who met this month at a con-ference in Utah to discuss the problem and look for solutions, say it may be in-sects, drought or climatic stress in general or overgrazing by animals like elk and cattle. Or it may be none or all of the above.

The aspen dieback is particularly baffling in that it seems to be occurring just in some Western states and is not affecting any neighboring trees, many of which already suffer from a plague of mountain pine beetles that has been devastat-ing the West.

Since word of the aspen dieback began spreading last fall, Dr. Shepperd’s of-fice began receiving reports of similar losses throughout the West — not just Colorado, where the problem is most predominant, but also in Utah, Idaho, Ne-vada, Montana, Arizona and southern Wyoming.

But because there has been no concerted investigation, it is not clear how many aspen have died, much less why. “Quite honestly we just don’t have any answers,” Dr. Shepperd said.

The die-off is particularly worrisome because of the special nature of the as-pen. The tree reproduces through vegetative regeneration. Genetically identical suckers sprout from the root of one tree and become clones. If the root of an aspen dies, it is unlikely to reproduce.

“We actually dug in a couple of instances and looked for live roots, and we couldn’t find any,” Dr. Shepperd said.

The dieback may go back as far as 1996, at the beginning of the recurrent drought, according to Mary Lou Fairweather, a plant pathologist for the South-western region of the Forest Service, who said she first noted the loss of trees in Arizona.

“I started monitoring the dieback on how the trees were growing, when and if it was continuing,” Ms. Fairweather said.

She added that she thought that the first deaths were caused by seasonal cli-mate changes like spring freezes and then accelerated by other factors, includ-

New York Times,

Katie Kelley, September 27,

2006

Page 9: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

����� �Emblem of the West is dying, and no one can figure out why

ing stress affecting the trees, although she noted that those were just theories.

In Utah, Dale Bartos, an aspen ecologist for the Forest Service, agreed that the lack of precipitation had contributed more stress to the aspen than initially thought.

“We’ve been in a major drought over the last few years, and I’m sure this has exacerbated the problem,” Mr. Bartos said.

Dr. Shepperd is not so sure. Although the current drought is probably a factor, he said, extensive long-term studies are needed.

“There’s no real pattern,” he said.

But he has noticed one intriguing clue. Some younger groves of aspen appear to be more resilient than the mature ones.

“Generally, younger stands seem to be healthier,” he said. But he added that it would be discouraging if these younger stands did not sprout. “We’re seeing it across the spectrum of site-conditioned aspen,” he said, meaning that no as-pen is safe.

Mr. Bartos estimates that at the current rate 10 percent of the aspens in the West could die within several years. Some of his colleagues call that a conser-vative estimate.

“We’ve seen in southern Utah, over a period of 12 years, where we have very healthy-looking clones with dark green leaves go to sites where there aren’t any trees left at all,” Mr. Bartos said, adding that in other cases researchers had observed an even quicker rate of decline. “To me, 12 years is fairly rapid when we’re talking about trees that have been on site for 100 to 125 years.” Nevertheless, the scientists who met in Utah to look for a solution came away somewhat hopeful, said John Guyon, a forest pathologist for the Intermountain Regional Office of the Forest Service.

Mr. Guyon said he thought that grazing elk and cattle might be eating away the regenerating aspen. And because the trees thrive after disruptions like ava-lanches and fires, the lack of such disturbances may be contributing to the die-back.

Jim Worrall, another Forest Service pathologist, said the question was fraught with uncertainty.

“What we don’t know is what the future holds,” Mr. Worrall said. “It’s an unprecedented event.”

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

Page 10: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

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The 2007 Minnesota Shade Tree Short Course (STSC) is right around the corner, and boy, do we have a deal for you!

On April 3rd and 4th, the 46th Annual STSC will be held at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center. We will still have the same generous selection of ses-sions presented by some of the best professionals in their fields.

For example:

• Carl Whitcomb will discuss nursery production of quality trees, espe-cially root systems, based on his 30+ years of research.

• Kevin Smith of the USDA Forest Service in New Hampshire, and a former colleague of Alex Shigo, will present a primer on compart-mentalization of decay.

• Everything that you ever needed to know about the top diseases, insect pests and tree decline by a variety of speakers.

• How ARE trees propagated?

Along with the new venue came some new expenses. So, as with everything else in life, the price of poker will go up to $165 for the two-day event, which is still a pretty good price. Eighty-two dollars and fifty cents a day for 7 hours of information, entertainment, training, fellowship, donuts and coffee and lunch…not a bad deal.

But wait, there’s more!

There won’t be the need for as many volunteers as we’ve needed in the past at Be-thel University, but there will be some volunteer opportunities. As a volunteer, reg-istration is complimentary in exchange for about 4-5 hours of time spent as a mod-erator, runner, guidance counselor or whatever else needs to be done.

But wait a minute, there’s still more!

Your past volunteer hours may lower the cost even more for some people. A few years ago, we instituted the Bronze through Platinum recognition program. It still works. Your total number of volunteer hours that you’ve accumulated since you became a TCA may place you in one of the recognition categories.

The categories are:

• Bronze: 100-199 hours total

• Silver: 200-299 hours

• Gold: 300-500 hours

• Platinum: Over 500 hours

What a Deal!

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��������What a Deal!

So, what does this mean to you? You don’t have to volunteer at the STSC to get a break on the registration price! You won’t pay $500, you won’t pay $200, depend-ing on your recognition category, this is all you will pay!....

• Bronze: $99

• Silver: $66

• Gold: $33

• Platinum: $0! That’s right, NOTHING!

But wait a minute, there’s even MORE!

We will be celebrating a huge TCA volunteer milestone…possibly. 50,000 reported volunteer hours contributed to making Minnesota a greener state! If this milestone is reached by December 31, 2006, we are planning lost of recognition, celebration and honors for you stellar volunteers at the STSC.

But wait, there’s a catch!

As bright and handsome as Dave and I are, we aren’t mind readers. We know that there’s a lot of TCA activity going on because we see you and others do, too! But we can’t report your hours for you…only you can do that.

There are two things that I know for sure about TCAs: 1) You’re doing a lot of good work around our state and continually building up our reputation, and 2) You’d rather take a good beating than fill out a TCA volunteer report form!

Please, please, please tell us what you’ve done! We won’t be mad, I promise. We’ll be ecstatic!! We really need this documentation of our program to promote it to others, to gain support from other groups and agencies and to show everyone that it can be done.

So please, report your hours to Dave and I. In order to qualify for the recognition categories, we need to have your 2006 hours by December 31, 2006. After that, the hours still count, but will not count for the STSC in 2007. Let us know what you are doing and join us in April. It’s been way too long since we’ve chatted.

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Minnesota’s logging industry languished, smaller mills persisted and only a small percentage of the state’s economy could now be attrib-uted to timber. Logging in Minnesota remained at these levels until the late 1970’s when technology brought a change to wood fiber utili-zation. Plywood products! Oriented strand board (OSB)! And, de-mand for higher quality paper products fueled a new interest in Min-nesota timber. Species that were once considered marginally useful were now getting a second look and the industry was ramping up once again.

Minnesota is home to several of those ‘marginally useful’, ‘trashy’ species. This ar-ticle will focus on two of the ‘trashy’ species, once used as firewood or thrown aside as trash, these two are now in demand. Quaking or trembling aspen and its seldom recognized cousin, bigtooth aspen were found to have good wood fiber traits for paper and plywood products. So, in the 1970s , members of the ‘popple’ family (Salicaceae, genus: Populus) such as: Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides), Balm-of-Gilead or balsam poplar (P. balsamifera) and in particular the two species trembling aspen (P. tremuloides) and bigtooth aspen (P. grandidentata) came to be the focus of the renewed interest in Minnesota forests.

Aspens or popples regenerate easily and on one hand this is a welcome and sought after trait. On the other hand this trait is known to be rapidly changing the composition of Minnesota’s producing forest lands. Aspen or popple, as many peo-ple refer to it, is a pioneer species and as such readily seeds into and colonizes dis-turbed areas. So, after a site is logged or burned, aspen is likely to be one of the first species to establish. And once established, aspen will quickly re-colonize a site after a logging operation. This re-colonization can exclude other species from gaining a foothold.

It should be mentioned that quaking aspen has an ‘identity’ confused cousin grow-ing along side of it in many parts of Minnesota. In reality, it isn’t the tree species that is confused, it is in fact many of us that don’t give bigtooth aspen the recogni-tion of individuality that it deserves. So, let’s help this tree out and put the spotlight on bigtooth aspen by comparing the two species. In many regards these species are very similar in appearance, traits and use. It often isn’t until the morphological details are studied that it becomes clear that quaking aspen and bigtooth aspen are two uniquely distinct species of the genus Populus.

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Page 14: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

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For starters take a look at the leaves. Both species have alter-nate branching and therefore alternate leaf set. The leaves are of similar size at 2-6 inches long with widths varying from 1-3 inches for bigtooth aspen and 1-2½ inches for trembling aspen. However, the shape and the margins of the leaves are signifi-cantly different. Bigtooth aspen has an elongated yet oval shape to the leaf with distinctly, coarsely toothed margins. While trembling aspen has an egg shaped or rounded leaf with finely toothed margins.

One leaf trait in particular separates these two species from most other species and it is the flattened petiole on the leaves. It is this flat petiole that gives the leaves an unusual flutter in the breeze and it is this flutter that generates that unique sound of trembling aspen.

Another subtle detail to look for – the lateral buds of bigtooth aspen are divergent of the twig while lateral buds of quaking aspen almost hug the twig, hooking the point or tip close to the twig. On the subject of twigs, both species have lenticels on the new growth, but the twigs of bigtooth aspen are slightly thicker and gray-green while the twigs of quaking aspen are rather slender in comparison and strongly red-dish-brown.

In the past the chambered piths of hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) or black walnut (Juglans nigra) have been described in this newsletter. Well, members of this ge-nus also have a pith worth looking at. In cross section, a star shaped pith will be noted at the center of smaller branches and twigs. In order to see this pith clearly, the twig or branchlet must be cut with a sharp knife or pruner to avoid crushing the interior of the twig.

On the larger branches and down the main trunk there is a color difference between the two species. Bigtooth aspen tends to have smooth, olive green bark. As the tree matures the bark becomes bronze-green to gray and is typically deeply fur-rowed between broad flat ridges. Quaking aspen on the other hand has a pale green to cream colored bark on younger growth and as the tree matures the bark becomes grayish.

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Page 15: 2006_Volume13_Issue4

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Aspens tend to be medium to large trees reaching heights of 40-60 feet and both species are described to have open, rounded crowns. The combination of the smooth bark and the golden fall canopies that literally light up the forests create a nice contrast to typical forest cohorts like conifers and dark colored hardwoods. This is especially true since aspens are not typically found as solitary individuals but as clonal stands formed through root sprouting as the top of the tree is re-moved through logging, damaged by insects, diseases, fire or simply dies of old age. Old age for an aspen can be 150 years, but most succumb long before reach-ing this milestone. An aspen of 50 to 60 years old is considered mature, with har-vest potentially taking place at 30-40 years.

Disturbances in an aspen stand are ecologically very beneficial. There are several wildlife species such as deer, moose, and grouse that survive Minne-sota’s winters browsing the buds and twigs of aspen. Truthfully, where would Northern Minnesota’s beaver population be without the abundance of one of its favorite forest delicacies ...

Even humans have utilized the buds, leaves and twigs for the natural pain kill-ing drug found within. Members of the salicaceae family produce salicin, some in larger quantities than others. Salicin is a glucoside that breaks down into salicylic acid – which you may recognize as Aspirin… One of the poplars was widely utilized for folk remedies and its common names reflect this; Balm-of-Gilead a.k.a. BAM a.k.a. Balsam poplar (P. balsamifera) is that member of the Salicaceae family.

In Colorado, it doesn’t really matter since they have aspen, trembling aspen - P. tremuloides to be more precise, but most Minnesotans should reconsider! Is the tree simply popple?

So, the next time one of your Minnesota friends points out a popple - you are now armed to set them straight! The species aren’t just popple or poplar - these spe-cies truly are aspen and there are two aspens in Minnesota.

In the future when you think you are listening to the gently rustling sounds of a quaking aspen, you had better take a second look!

Is it really quaking or does the tree have leaves with big clattering teeth?

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