Stressed out trees helping charities restore valuable aspen forests In a little understood quirk of nature foresters have been putting the aspen tree under duress to promote flowering.
It seems paradoxical but it works: being stressed helps these aspen flower and produce the short-lived seeds which rewilding charities and foresters need in their efforts to restore the aspen forests which once thrived across Britain’s uplands.
And to produce the tiny, delicate aspen seeds being harvested by the charity Trees for Life, these 104 specimens are deliberately made to suffer.
On a nature reserve deep in the Scottish Highlands there is a polytunnel which houses a small forest of slender grey aspen trees.
In a little understood quirk of nature, the UK’s aspen rarely flower in the wild and very rarely cross-germinate each other.
