After a fire, as many as 50,000 to 100,000 suckers, or aspen shoots that grow from the root system, can sprout and grow on one acre, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

What looks like 47,000 separate trees spread out over 106 acres in Utah are actually all offshoots from a single, massive Aspen tree root. It’s known as Pando and it is believed to be the ...

Pando is an ancient quaking aspen tree (Populus tremuloides) with 47,000 genetically identical stems, or tree trunks, connected to a vast underground root system.

Pretty soon, push comes to shove.” That underground root system is also behind aspen’s curious “cloning” process. Mature trees die, and new stems sprout.

The researchers collected samples of roots, bark, leaves and branches from across the Pando clone, as well as from other, unrelated quaking aspen trees for comparison.