October 8, 2010
A single aspen can send out roots that eventually take over a whole mountainside, covering the slope with clones posing as trees. One such grove in Utah has been growing for 80,000 years. But now fire suppression and grazing have caused big declines.
Stories this photo appears in:
Tremble of beauty
Efforts to understand the dwindling of the aspen reveal an intricate, endlessly connected natural world
I sit alone among the clones, which loom overhead — quivering weirdly. But I am not scared. Truth be told — I do so love these clones.
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