An interesting aspect of this gorge was the numbers of aspen trees present. Aspen comes in to leaf later than other broadleaved species, and is easily identified at this time of year. The two trees in the middle here without leaves are aspen. Scottish Native Woods currently have a project flying over Speyside photographing all the woodland areas and identifying aspen by their lack of leaves. The window of opportunity for doing this is only a few weeks.
Aspen is a very important component of our upland woods, and because the species rarely seeds in Scotland but spreads by suckers, it is not very mobile, and aspen trees like this usually indicate ancient woodland sites. We are taking a particular interest in recording all aspen stands that we find. In this case there are just two trees, plus a number of advanced suckers. In other locations today, we found up to 80 aspen trees in one area. It appears to be well represented in Glen Lyon.
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