Questions, Questions

Coming across a couple of aspen seedlings in a gully in the Cairngorms poses a number of interesting questions. Located hundred of metres from any mature aspen how did these seedlings establish themselves here?

Aspen rarely produces seed in Scotland, spreading mainly by suckers from the tree roots. Looking around in the heather I found no evidence of stumps of older aspen trees which could have produced these as suckers. Perhaps any stumps have decayed but the roots remained, fed by small suckers hidden in the heather?

Or can we conclude that they have established from seed, blown on the wind over the heather moorland to germinate and establish in the damp mossy layer of this gully?

Scientific analysis of the genetic print of the seedlings and comparing it with genetic print of neighbouring aspen trees would help answer these questions.