Name the tree

April 21, 2018 • 3:30 pm

I posted this picture of the trunk of a tree growing near where I’m staying. Readers demanded to see the leaves before a definitive ID, with one surmising that it might be an aspen. Here’s the trunk:

And here are the leaves  catkins (no leaves yet). Anybody know? I await the correct answer.

53 thoughts on “Name the tree”

  1. Aspen. The green bits are catkins, which emerge before the leaves. Sex before photosynthesis!

    1. One Adam Twelve, One Adam Twelve, see the tree demanding sex before photosynthesis on the corner of Calisto and Margarita.

    2. There’s enough green in the catkins for significant photosynthesis, yet with no leaves getting in the way of pollen travel. But leaves will pay the price of seed development once that gets going in earnest.

      Glen Davidson

  2. They could be aspen catkins . . . I couldn’t figure out how to paste a photo I found on the internet of them . . . google “aspen catkins” for some pics.

    1. The photo I found appears to prove that you are correct. Yes, I don’t know how to forward the pictures to this site. Google has many…
      Thanks

  4. I think it may be an Aspen. There are a few leaves showing, a bit out of focus at about 1/3 along x axis and about 1/3 up y axis but most of what you see are catkins. Think the catkins are mostly male flowers.

    1. Thanks for this. My first thought was birch, but from photos. I’m not familiar with either first-hand.

  6. These look like the flowering bodies of the aspen. Later these will have a fluffy white and sticky catkin. The leaves are not yet out. You can see the buds that will eventually be leaves on the twigs.

    Until recently it was unknown whether or not aspens sprouted from seeds but it was documented a few years ago. Since they are clonal and sprout ramets from the root system to create new “trees” some thought they may not reproduce from seed.

    Sometimes the two white birches (one is an imported species)found in No America can resemble aspen but the bark is papery and strips away from the under layer. The native paper birch, Betula papyrifera, does not occur naturally as far south as NM. Birches also produce cones and do not have catkins.

    Did you find the tree as an isolated plant or was it surrounded by similar trees?

      1. I think it is still most likely an aspen. Leaves would help to be certain. They can be purchased in nurseries and would fare well at 7,000 feet in NM. I live in SE Utah and we have trouble growing them at 4,000 feet but from my home I can see luxuriant aspen forests growing in the mountains above town.

        Great web site. I own and have read WEIT and Faith vs Fact.

          1. I live in Moab, about 120 miles mostly north of Mexican Hat, named after a stone formation called Mexican Hat. Supposedly it looks like a wide brimmed Mexican sombrero resting upside down on a stone pedestal. The town of Mexican Hat was known as Goodridge until about 1938. Royal Robbins and Jack Turner were the first to climb the brim of Mexican Hat, the rock, in 1962.

          2. I visited Moab mainly to see Arches National Park, which is a must-see, high on the bucket list, place. I envy you.

            I didn’t know any people lived there. 😉

  8. Well, this just shows my ignorance of botany. I thought those were some weird leaves of an imported tree, but they’re bloody CATKINS. I am embarrassed. I guess it’s an aspen.

    1. Hoskisson’s note came up while I was writing: aspens are clonal. Thank you. I understand that, in contrast, oak and maple trees’ separate root systems intermingle, a factor in the contagion of oak and maple wilt, caused by fungi(Ceratocystis fagacearum and verticillium respectively).

    3. From personal experience, they do spread vegetatively. How much vs. from seed probably depends on the individual site.

    4. If you drive through the high country in Colorado, there are some wide open vistas of stands of aspen groves, and because they are clonal, they are circular. Nice examples in South Park, near Fairplay.

    5. Yes, but. Aspens are clonal. A stand of aspens may all be one clone. However, genetic testing of different trees reveals that A single stand may have two or more clones. Sometimes several different clones.

    6. There are individual aspens that cover several acres and are >80,000 years old!!!!!! They are the oldest living things on the planet.

      1. That means these clones were nourishing mastodons long past middle age. O tempora O elephanti…

  11. Aspen

    I know – but yeah. Aspen…. I think.

    They do different things depending on what they did the previous year.

  12. Almost certainly an aspen. But besides looking at it, you might try listening to it, as per A. E. Housman’s lovely lines:

    And overhead the aspen heaves
    It’s rainy-sounding silver leaves.

  15. Leaves?! Those are flowers, aren’t they. The leaves appear to be about to unfurl from all those buds. Aside from that, I haven’t a clue. Paper birch?

    1. Ah

      I’ve heard it “quaking aspen”

      Then there’s the “tremuloides” part of its binomial name.

  21. Well, my first thought was a white birch.

    Many have said that they think the structures are Catkins but I think they’re actually white birch flowers (It’s difficult to make a definitive call however). And the trunk is spot on.

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