The clonal colony of quaking aspen in Utah is called Pando. Located in Fishlake National Forest, Pando is a single male quaking aspen clone whose roughly 47,000 stems are genetically identical and connected by one extensive root system.
The stems look like separate trees, but they are ramets—above-ground shoots produced through a process called suckering. Individual stems may live for roughly 100 to 130 years, die, and be replaced by new stems from the same underground organism. The colony covers about 42.9 hectares (106 acres) and has an estimated mass of around 6,000 metric tons.
Pando’s name comes from Latin for “I spread.” Botanists identified it as a single clone in the 1970s, and genetic research published in 2008 confirmed its enormous extent. It is often described as the world’s largest organism by weight, although comparisons depend on how an organism is defined. General Sherman, for example, is the largest single-stem tree by volume.
Pando is also famous for its age, but its exact age is debated because the root system cannot be dated through ordinary tree rings. Current estimates commonly place it somewhere in the thousands to roughly 16,000 years, rather than treating older popular figures as settled fact. Deer and elk browsing, drought, grazing, and fire-management practices all affect its future.