In her oil painting "Fall Symphony," contemporary artist Mona Edulesco captures a lovely scene: a vibrant aspen grove in the foreground, and another nestled in the distance.
In doing so, she also captures one of nature’s most fascinating secrets.
You see, what looks like a massive forest of thousands of individual aspen trees is often just a few massive, interconnected organisms called clones.
Look closely at the painting. The leaves of the foreground trees are nearly the identical shade of gold. That is exactly what happens in the wild.
These trees belong to the same clone, connected underground by a shared root system, carrying the same DNA. Because they are genetically identical they act in unison, changing color at almost the exact same time.
But a nearby grove? It might change a day or two later, or appear to be a slightly different hue. That is because it belongs to a different clone, with a different genetic makeup.
It might also be dealing with a unique patch of soil, or a different angle of the autumn sun. In Edulesco’s painting, those distant trees hold a distinctly reddish tint.
There is a survival strategy to this design. If a storm blows down a few trees or if a few are cut down, the loss is only temporary. The shared root system remains alive and well underground, quickly sending up new shoots to replace what was lost.
And that is what makes "Fall Symphony" so intriguing. From a distance, you see a forest of strangers. But look closer, and you realize it is actually a patchwork of deeply interconnected families, each with its own timing, its own identity, and its own color.
On the surface, it’s a forest. But underground, it’s families.
