Aspen

“ It is glorious to see the abandonment of Nature in this extravagance of vegetation, this wild luxuriance of flowers and foliage; the trees stretch out their arms, breed and intertwine in the most fantastic manner; the branches make a hundred curiously-distorted turns, and interlace in beautiful disorder; sometimes hanging the red berries of the mountain-ash among the silver foliage of the aspen.
The rapid slope of the ground produces a thousand picturesque accidents ”

“ There were dwarf oaks, willows, hazel, and spruce; the white cedar and the trailing juniper jostled each other for a precarious foothold; the majestic redwood-tree of the Pacific met the exquisite balsam-pine of the Atlantic slopes, and among them all the pale gold foliage of the large aspen trembled (as the legend goes) in endless remorse. And above them towered the toothy peaks of the glittering mountains, rising in pure white against the sunny blue. Grand glorious! sublime! ”

“ When alone, these little trees seem lonely and sometimes to tremble as though just a little afraid in this big strange world. But generally the aspen is not alone. Usually you find a number of little aspens playing together, with their leaves shaking, jostling, and jumping,—moving all the time. ”

“ Arkady and Bazarov lay in the shade of a small haystack, putting under themselves two armfuls of dry and rustling, but still greenish and fragrant grass.
'That aspen-tree,' began Bazarov, 'reminds me of my childhood; it grows at the edge of the clay-pits where the bricks were dug, and in those days I believed firmly that that clay-pit and aspen-tree possessed a peculiar talismanic power; I never felt dull near them. ”

“ Judy searched the shelves. Still under the spell of the old mining days, she selected Aspen and the Silver Kings. It was a large, heavy book, its text liberally interwoven with pictures. She sat down at a table to examine it more leisurely. Mule teams with heavy wagons carrying the silver ore over Independence Pass, a road thirteen thousand feet high. A trip over this scenic wonder was, even to the passengers in Kit Carson’s stage coach, a fearsome thing. A hut near one of the mine shafts. Five men playing cards. A snow slide and the five were buried under twenty-five feet of snow. ”

“ Though this tree has a constitution so tender that it is easily killed by fire or injury, it is one of the greatest pioneer trees in the forest world. Through the ages the restless aspen leaves appear to have attracted the attention [Pg 290] of mankind. Unfortunately the old myths and legends concerning this merry, childlike tree told of fear or sorrow, but now every one catches the hopeful spirit of the aspen. Aspens are youth, eternal youth. Endlessly their dancing leaves proclaim youth. They are romping children. ”

“ The broad-leaved maple is usually found in the coolest boulder-choked cañons, where the streams are gray and white with foam, over which it spreads its branches in beautiful arches from bank to bank, forming leafy tunnels full of soft green light and spray,—favorite homes of the water ousel. Around the glacier lakes, two or three thousand feet higher, the common aspen grows in fringing lines and groves which are brilliantly colored in autumn, reminding you of the color glory of the Eastern woods. ”

“ Judy said, a little dubious of her ability to carry on such a varied program.
“Not really,” Lynne said. “At twelve-thirty we are all ravenously hungry and we spend the lunch period in our grove of aspen trees. It’s a cool and restful spot, a lovely end to our morning. At one o’clock we drive the children back to their homes.” ”

“ The charging rush of the mares was checked and they swerved in bewildered fashion as a new burst of flame and death leaped at them from a scrub-oak clump on the edge of the rim well down toward the aspen grove. Mares collapsed and colts leaped and ran about wildly. Midnight had only one thought, to drive the mares out through the aspen grove and into the open country. This was his first meeting with the deadly guns of man and, like all wild things, the death which struck from far off filled him with terror. But he did not desert the mares. ”

“ The most striking relict of the aspen formation is the facies itself, Populus tremuloides. The tall slender trunks of dead aspens are found in practically every balsam-spruce forest. In many places, living trees are still found, with small, straggling crowns, which are vainly trying to outgrow the surrounding conifers. Of the aspen undergrowth, Rosa sayii, Helianthella parryi, Frasera speciosa, Zygadenus elegans, Castilleia confusa, Gentiana acuta, and Solidago orophila remain more or less modified by the diffuse light. ”

“ The grass is strewn with the leaves of the aspen, which have turned quite black. Under the great elms there seems a sudden increase of light—it is caused by the leaves which still remain on the branches; they are all of the palest yellow, and, as you pass under, give the impression of the tree having been lit up—illuminated with its own colour. ”

“ It also vies with the lodge-pole pine in quickness of taking possession of burned-over areas. Let a moist place be burned over and the aspen will quickly take possession, and soon establish conditions which will allow conifers to return. This the conifers do, and in a very short time smother the aspens that made it possible for them to start in life. The good nursery work of aspens is restricted pretty closely to damp places.
Besides being a useful tree, the bare-legged little aspen with its restless and childlike ways is a tree that it is good to know. ”

“ The old houses and new ones, too, are filled with music students from all over the country. A great orchestra, like the one in which John will play, gives concerts to thousands of people every week. Even the old opera house has its season, students and professionals singing the roles. Aspen is a paradise for musicians! And great lecturers, too, I’m told.”
“And don’t overlook the skiers in winter,” John added happily. “They come from all over the world to ski and to train for the Olympic matches. I’m afraid, Judy, you’ll find no ghosts in Aspen, summer or winter. ”

“ Perhaps, Judy, except that Uncle Jake never struck gold and came back poorer than when he left—
“In Aspen country, settlers got rich, mining silver or building up the town. They built comfortable homes, not the ugly shacks you see in most mining country. Aspen never became one of those gambling, shooting communities. The settlers were different. Schools, churches, a bank, a newspaper, everything mushroomed into the empty valley. Millions of dollars’ worth of silver ore was taken out of the mines. ”

“ The grandeur of Aspen, its natural beauties, its cultural life as well as its historical heritage—all are graphically described. It is in this setting that we see the young generation of today striving for self-realization, often in rebellion against their parents during this trying period of adolescence. ”

“ Ashcroft was built up before Aspen, but Aspen got ahead faster.”
“Why?” Judy asked.
“I’ll tell yer. For one thing, the mines out this way were hard to work and new mines weren’t easy to locate. At Aspen things were different. New veins kept on being opened all the time and they weren’t so hard to mine. Nature favored it more, or maybe it was better equipment. Anyhow, prospectors and settlers both got discouraged. They gradually took off. Yep, they just moved away. A lot of them dragged their houses with them by mule team.”
“What about Montezeuma and Tam-o-shanta? They were here. ”

“ Lynne said, “we have a beautiful, free day, no concert, no rehearsal, no camp. For a long time Allen and I have planned to visit Toklat. You’ve heard of the huskies, the wonderful Alaskan dogs that live there, trained and bred by Stuart Mace.”
Judy nodded.
“I think you’ll love seeing them. Allen’s crazy about dogs and he’s been dying to go there ever since we came to Aspen. And not a stone’s throw from Toklat is a real ghost town, the kind you’ve been babbling about. Ashcroft, once larger than Aspen, is still deserted after seventy years.”
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“You mean the silver-mining town?” ”

“ The sun rose over the eastern mountains brilliantly, and gave promise of a fine day. Our route lay among vast swelling hills, the sides of which were covered with groves of the large yellow pine and aspen. These latter trees exclude every other from their society. They stand so closely that not the half of their number live until they are five inches in diameter. ”

“ The valley of the South Fork is somewhat narrower than that of the main river through which we had come. The brush marks the course of the stream on the left, and beyond it the mountains rise gradually for perhaps two thousand feet, while to the right they reach about the same altitude. The aspen groves are abundant, their lighter green foliage being interspersed with the darker hue of the pines, clothing the sloping hillsides from the base to the summit. The road is smooth and we can trot the horses readily. At times we are close to the river and again half a mile away. ”

“ Aspen and Red, Fran named them. He pointed to some houses high up the mountain, barely visible because of the forests. “Imagine people building big homes up there because the town’s too crowded! The road is so steep only the jeeps can make it. A good car gets used up in no time.”
They continued to drive slowly through the town. Houses of all shapes and styles of architecture were huddled together. Some were old with pointed roofs, gables, and bulging bay windows. Mr. Lurie admired the ones patterned after Swiss chalets, happy reminders of a boyhood vacation in Switzerland. ”

“ A regular tree-route, followed alternately by the male and female, included a quaking aspen, a larger alder, and a large willow, in which borings had been made. The birds flew directly from the nest to the aspen, and gathered the sap that had accumulated since the last visit; then flew to the alder and to the willow, repeating the process; and finally flew back to the nest, without hunting for insects. Occasionally the male would vary the process by catching a few flies from the air, eating some and carrying some to the nest. ”

“ The inner recesses form an almost impenetrable mass of young boles of shivering aspen and scented balm. This mass slopes down to thickets of alder, red dogwood, haw, highbush cranberry, and honeysuckle, with wide beds of goldenrod or purple asters shading off into the spangled meadows wherever the copses open up into grassy glades.
Through this bush, and skirting its meadows, I drove for an hour. There was another fork in the trail, and again I had to get out and walk on the side, to feel with my foot for the rut where it branched to the north. ”

“ The twigs are slender. The buds are long, sharp-pointed, with smooth, glossy scales covered with a gummy substance. Alternate leaf-scars.
[Pg 180]
The aspen is more conspicuous in summer, when the constant motion of its trembling leaves attracts our attention, than it is in winter, although in some trees the smooth, olive-green bark of the trunk is very attractive, particularly in contrast with the snow. There have been endless allusions in literature to the European aspen, which resembles our species. In a simile showing the activity of Penelope’s maidens, Homer says:—
“Some ply the loom ”

“ Once he stopped to scratch; he rubbed his back against the stump, and clawed at the itchy spot with left forepaw. He ate a mouthful of bark and resumed work. All the cutting had been done from one side, and for the few final bites he scraped a quantity of trash against the stump and stood upon this so as to reach the last bit to be cut off. He was two or three minutes less than an hour in cutting off this four-inch aspen, but aspen is of soft wood. He galloped behind a pine until the aspen tumbled over. Waddling back to it, he snipped off several little limbs, a single bite for each. ”

“ Our government decided that gold, not silver, should be used in the United States Mint.
“The mines stopped operating. Miners were thrown out of work—so was everyone else. The people had to leave or starve. Aspen became a ghost town!”
“What do you mean, Grandpa?”
23
“When people have to leave their homes, everything they’ve labored to build, the town dies. That’s what happened to Aspen! Maybe a hundred settlers stayed on. The houses were empty, their doors swinging in the wind, the streets deserted, Aspen slept.”
Minna’s voice broke the spell. “Music, not a prince, woke this sleeping beauty. ”

“ Why have landscape gardeners done so little with birches and aspens? Maples, oaks, ashes, and evergreens are well; but in what other direction shall we look for such grace in form, such susceptibility to aerial influences, and such exquisite motion both of branch and leaf, as we find in the aspen and birch? The birches grow rapidly, are extremely hardy, and will flourish upon poor soil, though loving a generous soil better. In ten years, with birch and aspen, one may rejoice in a thick grove. ”

“ We climbed in here some time after the retreat of the last Ice King and found aspen and lodge-pole pine in possession. These trees fought us for several generations, but we finally drove them out. For ages the Engelmann spruce family has had undisputed possession of this slope. We stand amid three generations of mouldering ancestors, and beneath these is the sacred mould of older generations still. ”

“ Thus, Populus-hylium is the aspen forest as distinguished from the Picea-Pseudotsuga-hylium, or the balsam-spruce forest; and the Bulbilis-psilium, or buffalo-grass prairie, from the Bouteloua-Andropogon-psilium, or grama-bluestem prairie. Similarly, the aspen formation of the Old World and of the New may be distinguished as Populus-tremula-hylium and Populus-tremuloides-hylium, respectively. In all formational names, the facies alone should be used. Frequently, a single facies will suffice for clearness. As a rule, however, the two most important facies should be employed ”