Like Quaking Aspen, Big-tooth Aspen has flat petioles, which allow the leaves to flutter, or quake, at the slightest breeze.
 
     It's a bigger tree all-around, though, with bigger leaves and a taller stature, reaching heights of up to 70 feet.  As a member of the willow family, it's generally fast-growing tree with a lifespan of 60 to 80 years. 
 
     Big-tooth's leaves are distinguishable by the large grooves, or teeth, along the edges.  The leaves turn a lovely yellow color in fall and sometimes oranges and reds.  Its form is usually a straight trunk with branches that turn upward.
 
     Its bark kind of a brownish green, where as the bark on Quaking Aspen is a smooth lighter gray, sometimes whitish. 
 
     Big-tooth Aspen reproduces not only via seeds that are wind-dispersed from spring catkins but also from root suckers, often forming colonies of trees that share a root system.
 
     Big-tooth Aspen grows well in full sun and is an important food source for birds, mammals and butterflies, and it is a larval host for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.