Fremont cottonwood
Utah's most massive broadleaf tree, a sign of water in dry country.
USU Extension calls Fremont cottonwood Utah's largest or most massive deciduous tree, averaging about 70 feet tall with a crown often as broad as it is high. Its broad, roughly triangular leaves turn yellow in autumn. Mature trunks have thick, gray, deeply furrowed bark.
It grows mostly along low-elevation streams that stay moist, seldom above 6,000 feet. Its cottony seeds sprout almost only on fresh, wet sand and silt left by spring floods. Today it is valued for streambank protection, shade, and food and shelter for wildlife.
Seeing it
A line of cottonwoods across a desert valley usually marks a stream or wash.
More plants · Streams and wetlands
Tamarisk
A non-native, water-loving shrub along southwestern rivers, and a target of restoration work.