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Photo: Lance Oditt, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The world's largest tree, and possibly the world's largest organism. Pando (Latin for "I spread") is an aspen clonal colony, meaning that although it looks like a forest of some 47,000 trees, all those trunks are connected underground in one massive organism. Utah Route 25 goes straight through Pando, which is just southwest of Fish Lake; you'll recognize it by the aspens growing all around the road and the sign that says "Welcome to Pando". A pullout by the side of the road allows you to stop and walk the Pando Trail through the forest (parts of Pando are fenced off to prevent grazing animals from eating new saplings, but there are gates you can walk through). Please respect Pando and don't climb or carve on any of the trunks, as carvings can spread disease and hurt the tree.
Pando, also called the Trembling Giant, is the name of a quaking aspen clone located in Sevier County, Utah, United States, in the Fishlake National Forest. A male clonal organism, Pando has an estimated 47,000 stems (ramets) that appear to be individual trees but are genetically identical parts of a single tree connected by a root system that spans 42.8 ha. As a multi-stem tree, Pando is the world's largest tree by measures of weight, landmass and species, and is generally held to be the world's single largest organism by weight.
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