The aspen is best known for its nervous aspen foliage. Basically, there is also a lot of character potential in their fruits. That they haven't come up with a figure of speech may be due to their lower solitary status.
The fruits of the aspen are rather inconspicuous
First flowers, then leaves, then fruit
The order of what the aspen produces throughout the year is the same as that of its fellow species. Like all Populus species, the flowers are the first to appear. In subtropical latitudes they can appear as early as February, with us they appear from March or April. They then have the tree to themselves for the entire flowering period.
Because the foliage only wakes up after the catkins have faded. It can unfold undisturbed for a while and stretch out its fresh green, before the fruits appear from the end of May.
The flowering, foliage and fruit times at a glance:
- In this country flowers from March/April
- Foliage unfurling in April
- Fruits from the end of May
The fertilization
Like all Populus species, aspens are anemophilous, which means they have adapted to wind pollination. So the male catkin flowers hire the wind to send their pollen on its way to the female flowers.
When the female flowers are fertilized, they in turn use the wind to reproduce, i.e. to spread the seeds. This means that aspens are not only anemophilic, but also anemochoric.
The infructescence, which develops from the end of May, is a greenish to brownish colored capsule with two to four lobes. A single female catkin has many of these capsules. To release the seeds, they open as the fruit ripens. During this time, the kittens have a white wool appearance due to their widely spread surface.
Fluffy flying seeds from June
To be easily carried away by the wind, the seeds have a fluffy tuft of whitish, fine hairs on top. This acts as a kind of sail and ensures a generous distribution radius of the aspen. When seeds end up in rivers, they can be carried even farther than by wind alone. This means that aspens have an enormously high reproductive range.
Due to the fact that the seeds of aspens are so numerous, you can often experience a veritable flurry of fluff in June. When you walk through a trembling aspen grove, you come home like snow.