An e-mail from one of our new aspen volunteers, Tim Fison, suggested that there was an aspen on South Chesthill estate in Glenlyon that was producing genuine aspen seedlings, not ones arising from underground roots. Suitably curious to see what genuine aspen seedlings looked like, I set out to have a look. There were apparently such seedlings to be found up to 50 metres from the parent trees.
Unfortunately, on closer inspection, it was not to be. There were indeed little aspen plants appearing at 50 metres from the parent trees, and 15-20 metres up a bank from them, but all the little plants on inspection were arising from underground rootstock.......there were no genuine seedlings with self-supporting root systems that I could find, although the supporting roots were only a centimetre or so thick in some cases.
The aspen trees were almost certainly just one clone, either male or female, with no others in the vicinity, although one was present about 500 metres away downhill and well out of view. Such trees cannot reproduce by producing seed by sexual means, only be vegetative propogation like this. There is no question that this clone is very prolific at producing suckers, which are all genetically identical to the parent tree.
It would be very interesting if anyone is aware of any genuine aspen seedlings produced naturally from seed........we will gladly have a look and verify your findings.
Keep looking Tim.........!! This was a nice walk all the same......
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