Trembling aspen
Prepared by Jennifer L. D’Appollonio, Assistant Scientist, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469. Updated April 2019.
Scientific name: Populus tremuloides Michx.
Common name(s): trembling aspen, quaking aspen, quaking poplar
Links: USDA PLANTS Profile, NPIN Profile, Go Botany
Images: (to see enlargements [PC]: click on image, then right click and choose “view image”)
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- regrowth in prune field
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- seedling in prune field
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- leaves have small rounded teeth
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- Young leaves may be red; note flattened petioles
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- glands on leaves
Description:
-Twigs slender with scattered orange lenticels
- slightly angled with shiny buds
- hairless, dark brown and narrow
Smooth, grayish-green bark with a whitish bloom
-Leaves are
- alternate, heart-shaped
- upper sides dark blue-green with underside a dull green
- Flattened shape of petiole causes leaves to shake in the slightest breeze
-Unisexual flowers, male and female catkins of about equal size appear on different trees.
– may be confused with and hybridizes with P. grandidentata, which also occurs in wild blueberry fields; see left sidebar and Flora Novae Angliae information on Go Botany webpage
Habitat:
-forest edges
-meadows and fields
-shrublands
-thickets
-woodlands
Source(s):
Haines, A., Farnsworth, E., Morrison, G., & New England Wild Flower Society. (2011). New England Wildflower Society’s Flora Novae Angliae: A manual for the identification of native and naturalized higher vascular plants of New England. Framingham, MA: New England Wild Flower Society. p. 832.
Go Botany. “Populus Tremuloides Michx.” Populus Tremuloides (Quaking Aspen, Quaking Poplar): Go Botany, 2021, gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/populus/tremuloides/.