07 October 2005

Aspens

They're stranger than you probably knew, and symbolic to boot.

From the essay by David Lukas:

The most widely distributed tree in North America is a mystery. Called quaking aspen for the trembling of its leaves, it is anything but timorous or fragile. It is unfathomably ancient and enduring, approaching what has been called "theoretical immortality." It is a lifeform persisting over time without offspring, in suspended animation, waiting patiently through the dark passage of millennia for something we can only guess at.

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