The real story
Pando grows in Fishlake National Forest, Utah: about 47,000 trunks over 43 hectares, every one genetically identical and joined underground by one root system. Its name is Latin for 'I spread'. Quaking aspen rarely grows from seed out there. Instead it sends up new trunks from its roots, so when one stem dies the organism simply grows another. Together they weigh about 6,000 tonnes.
Nobody knows exactly how old it is. Older estimates said up to about 14,000 years. A 2024 genetic study that counted mutations across the clone suggested somewhere between 16,000 and 80,000. The real threat is younger: mule deer and elk eat the new shoots before they can grow. In the fenced areas young trunks have come back thick, and researchers now track which fences work.
