Populus is a genus of 25–30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar, aspen, and cottonwood.
Populus section Populus, of the Populus (poplar) genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by contrast, is native to warmer regions, with hot, dry summers. These trees are all medium-sized deciduous trees ranging 15–30 metres (49–98 ft) tall.
The balsam poplars are a group of about 10 species of poplars, indigenous to North America and eastern Asia, distinguished by the balsam scent of their buds, the whitish undersides of their leaves, and the leaf petiole being round in cross-section. They are large deciduous trees, 30–60 m tall, with leaves with a rounded base, pointed apex, and a whitish waxy coating on the underside of the leaf; this latter distinguishes them from most other poplars. The name is derived from the pleasant balsam smell of the opening buds and leaves in spring, produced by a sticky gum on the buds which also helps protect the buds from insect damage. The balsam poplars are light-demanding trees that require considerable moisture. Balsam poplars are tolerant of very cold conditions, occurring further north than other poplars except for the aspens. The poplars in Southern California are tolerant of 100 plus degree heat. They grow along dry washes and dry riverbed's. The dry washes and dry riverbeds will have flowing water when it rains sufficiently. Their leaves hang down and are at an edge to the sun. This may be another factor why they can take the high heat. Their leaves tremble in the slightest breeze like the quaking aspen
White poplar is a common name used to refer to several trees in the genus Populus, including:
Populus tremuloides is a deciduous tree native to cooler areas of North America, one of several species referred to by the common name aspen. It is commonly called quaking aspen, trembling aspen, American aspen, mountain or golden aspen, trembling poplar, white poplar, and popple, as well as others. The trees have tall trunks, up to 25 meters tall, with smooth pale bark, scarred with black. The glossy green leaves, dull beneath, become golden to yellow, rarely red, in autumn. The species often propagates through its roots to form large clonal groves originating from a shared root system. These roots are not rhizomes, as new growth develops from adventitious buds on the parent root system.
Populus tremula is a species of poplar native to cool temperate regions of Europe and Asia, from Iceland and the British Isles east to Kamchatka, north to inside the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia and northern Russia, and south to central Spain, Turkey, the Tian Shan, North Korea, and northern Japan. It also occurs at one site in northwest Africa in Algeria. In the south of its range, it occurs at high altitudes in mountains.
Melampsora medusae is a fungal pathogen, causing a disease of woody plants. The infected trees' leaves turn yellowish-orange. The disease affects mostly conifers, e.g. the Douglas-fir, western larch, tamarack, ponderosa, and lodgepole pine trees, but also some broadleaves, e.g. trembling aspen and poplars. Coniferous hosts are affected in late spring through early August, and trembling aspens and poplars from early summer to late fall. It is one of only two foliage rusts that occur naturally in British Columbia.
The Crooked Trees, Crooked Bush, Twisted Trees or the Crooked Trees of Alticane are a grove of deformed trembling aspen trees of type Populus tremuloides Michx. found in Saskatchewan, Canada. They are found approximately twenty kilometers north-north-west of the town of Hafford, Saskatchewan and just over five kilometers south-west of Alticane.
Populus grandidentata, commonly called large-tooth aspen, big-tooth aspen, American aspen, Canadian poplar, or white poplar, is a deciduous tree native to eastern North America.
Pando is a clonal organism representing an individual male quaking aspen. It was identified as a single living organism because its parts possess identical genetic markers and it is assumed to have a massive interconnected underground root system. The plant is located in the Fremont River Ranger District of the Fishlake National Forest at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau in south-central Utah, United States, around 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of Fish Lake. Pando occupies 108 acres (43.6 ha) and is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000 tonnes (6,000,000 kg), making it the heaviest known organism.
The pale enargia or aspen twoleaf tier is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It has a boreal-transcontinental distribution, occurring across the Canadian boreal plain and then southward through the western cordillera at higher elevations, where it is presumably limited by the availability of trembling aspen and possibly other poplars. Records range from northernmost British Columbia and south-western Northwest Territories east to New Brunswick. It has also been reported from Nova Scotia, Ohio and New York. In the western United States it is known from western Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, western Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. There are no records from the Rocky Mountain front ranges of Colorado, where it would be expected to be widespread if there is a continuous distribution southward into New Mexico and Arizona. The populations from west of the Rocky Mountains south to New Mexico and Arizona may represent a distinct species.
The Alberta Mountain forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of Western Canada, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.
The Alberta–British Columbia foothills forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of Western Canada, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system. This ecoregion borders Canada's taiga and contains a mix of subarctic forest and temperate forest species as a result. This makes the region an ecotone region, or a region that acts as a buffer between two other biomes.
The aspen leaf blotch miner moth is a moth of the family Gracillariidae. It is found in most of Europe. It is also present in Turkey and North America.
Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section Populus, of the Populus genus.
Phellinus tremulae, the aspen bracket, is a species of polypore fungus in the family Hymenochaetaceae that grows on Populus tremula and on trembling aspen in Canada. The species was first described as Fomes igniarius f. tremulae by Appollinaris Semenovich Bondartsev in 1935. It causes the disease Aspen trunk rot.
Aspen trunk rot is a fungal disease that causes stem decay heart rot of living aspen trees. The pathogen that causes this disease is the fungus Phellinus tremulae. Most of the symptoms of this disease are internal, with the only external signs of a diseased aspen being fruiting bodies called conks. A single conk found on an aspen can indicate advanced decay of up 82% of the tree volume. Internal decayed wood of freshly cut aspens is spongy, yellow/white colored, surrounded by black zones of discoloration, and contains a distinct wintergreen smell. The fungus is spread via airborne spores released from the fruiting body which can infect through dead branches, branch stubs, or wounds in the tree. Although no direct management control is known, harvesting aspen stands that have been damaged or harvesting stands before decay becomes advanced minimizes tree loss. Aspen wood is white, malleable but strong, and heat-tolerant and therefore has many commercial uses including matches, packing paper, lumber, plywood, pulp, and animal beds. Aspen trees diseased with aspen trunk rot decrease the economic value of the lumber.
Trembling aspen is an old aspen tree in Konya Province, central Turkey. It is a registered natural monument of the country.
