Pando the Giant Aspen Clone

amazing plants · Utah · world record

One organism, many trees. Pando looks like a whole forest of 47,000 quaking aspen trees, but every single one is genetically identical and connected underground by a massive root system. They're all one giant tree, making Pando the heaviest organism on Earth.

Covers 42.8 hectares. Pando's roots spread across an area larger than 60 football fields in Utah's Fishlake National Forest. That's about 106 acres of continuous underground network connecting all the stems together.

Heavier than blue whales. Because it has so many stems all living together, Pando weighs more than 13 million pounds, making it heavier than any animal, any other tree, and even many buildings combined.

A male tree. Pando is a male clone, which means all 47,000 stems are genetically identical brothers that grew from a single male aspen. This male DNA stays the same in every single part of the organism.

Grows from one root. Instead of being 47,000 separate trees with their own roots, Pando is like an underground jellyfish where one enormous root system sends up 47,000 stems above the ground to catch sunlight.