TREMBLING ASPEN
populus tremuloides

• The leaves quiver or tremble at the slightest breeze
• Trembling Aspen can sprout from root suckers
• Trembling Aspen are quick growing but short lived (around 50 years)
• Trembling Aspen provide food for the beaver, moose, elk and deer, nesting in rotten trunks for birds

• Trembling Aspen grow throughout BC
• Trembling Aspen appear east of the Coast Ranges
• Narrow band along east coast of Vancouver Island
• Very common in the northeast corner of BC
• Trembling Aspen likes well drained, moist soils rich in calcium

• Trembling Aspen grow up to 25 metres tall

• tiny, down-covered capsules, full of seeds

• male catkins: 2 to 3 cm long female catkins: 4 to 10 cm long female and male catkins are found on separate trees
• appear with or before leaves

• round to triangular shape
• pointed tip and edges round-tipped
• stalk is flattened so leaf can 'tremble' or move at the slightest breeze
• smooth, dark green with a paler underside, turns yellow in the fall

• smooth, greenish white turning blackish and roughened at the base when mature
• doesn't peel
• black scars show where branches once grew
• often show scars of bears and other animals

• soft, brittle, not durable

• modern - pulp, waferboard, chopsticks, early settlers derived a quinine-like substance from the inner bark, boiled branches made a cleanser for guns, traps and to remove human scent from hunters
• traditional - inner bark: food (raw or roasted); wood: tent poles, fuels, canoes - rotten wood was used to line babies' cradles because it was soft; bark/roots: chewed and applied to wounds to stop the bleeding