Find a large stand of aspen trees in a suitable valley. Next find a vantage point from which a camera can take images that contain the grove and enough of the surroundings. Set up a camera to take one image at noon on the first day of each month for two hundred years. If the conditions for the aspen trees is more favorable at one end of the valley, the organism will grow more trees there. Slowly some of the trees on the other side of the valley may die off. After two hundred years we would have 2,400 images. Using 15 images per second we would have a movie that is two minutes and 40 seconds long and may show a forrest walking across a valley.
Tree Profile: Aspen
One aspen tree is actually only a small part of a larger organism. A stand or group of aspen trees is considered a singular organism with the main life force underground in the extensive root system.
and
Older than the massive Sequoias or the biblical Bristlecone Pines, the oldest known aspen clone has lived more than 80,000 years on Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Not only is the clone the oldest living organism, weighing in at an estimated 6,600 tons, it is also the heaviest.
Ottmar, I could not keep from chuckling to imagine the magnificent walking aspen forest. Impressive math work!
Oh, Aspens! They are mystical. The three aspen trees in my front courtyard constantly shoot up sprouts at great distances from the mother trees, showing that forceful underground life. I regret I can’t allow the young trees to mature, as my courtyard is small.
An artist who used to live in Santa Fe was fascinated by aspens and painted the trunks with emphasis on the “eyes.” I have a small painting of his called “Close Encounter,” a super close-up of two aspen trunks. The two huge eyes seem to contain other universes.
Not-so-ancient relics in Santa Fe:
TUMBLE ON, TUMBLEWEED
_ Jane Parham Katz (today)
While I awaited my green light
At a busy Santa Fe corner,
A husky tumbleweed careened
Through the intersection
Certain of his right-of-way.
Did his ancestors tumble through here
Long ere pavement and traffic?
Perhaps a nomadic Indian brave
Noticed his bouncing flight.
Then I saw a horse trailer speed
Across my intersection on yellow.
Two horses casually stood inside,
Their carriage hustling them onward.
Did their ancestors gallop through here,
The fastest creatures on earth?
So magnificently running with the wind
Across the open valley?