This brilliant grove of orange-tipped aspen sets a hillside ablaze above the Dolores River in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado north of Rico and south of Telluride. Normally, the colors in one specific aspen tree do not vary much but these trees were all two-toned. Since aspen propagate through underground shoots and roots known as rhizomes, these trees are all probably genetic clones of each other. As a footnote to this rhizome-propagating process, scientists speculate that the largest living organism on earth, when it comes to trees, that is, is a huge genetically-identical grove of aspen on a Colorado mountainside in the Elk Mountains. This panoramic photograph was captured with a 6x17 panorama format camera. All photos in these fine art photo galleries may be ordered as fine art framed prints or for stock photography usage.