It is commonly called The Trembling Giant or by its scientific biological name populus tremuloides and it is one of Earth’s oldest living organisms. The living organism is yet another in a long growing list of living entities on this planet that do not reproduce in a binary fashion, or the traditional human gendering and stereotyping of male/female, or antiquated Bronze Age classification of sexual reproduction. “Pando,” as it is also called, in the Fishing Lake National Forest of Utah, USA, is a male classified organism. However, it reproduces or “spreads” itself asexually with no need for a female organism of its kind like many other Earthly living beings and organisms today that are clearly asexual female reproducing with no need of a male partner.

Dendrologists have concluded that The Trembling Giant Pando is approximately 80,000 to 1,000,000 years old or more. During the Fall the bright tinted yellow of the Aspen leaves are spectacular to view with many witnesses/visitors describing their dazzling luminescence as “glowing and reflecting” the Sun’s rays in vibrant stunning color.

“Each of the approximately 47,000 or so trees in the grove is genetically identical and all the trees share a single root system. While many trees spread through flowering and sexual reproduction, quaking aspens usually reproduce asexually, by sprouting new trees from the expansive lateral root of the parent. The individual trees aren’t individuals but stems of a massive single clone, and this clone is truly massive. “Pando” is a Latin word that translates to “I spread.””

atlas obscura — november 2010, accessed 9/20/2023 at: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pando-the-trembling-giant

Sadly, the future of the massive giant organism is under threat of extinction. Ecologists at Utah State University explain that the new shoots and stems of Pando regularly die of natural pests, severe drought caused by Climate Change, habitat loss, and local deer and elk eating off the new growth. Its regenerative root system of the organism are under attack as well over the last 5-decades. Without a deterrence of these external attacks ecologists expect the giant to collapse in 20-years or less.