Here’s a tree for you. It has heart-shaped leaves, is easy to grow in full sun to part shade across a range of soil conditions, and is somewhat drought-tolerant. In June, copious small, yellow, sweet-smelling flowers blanket the tree, attracting so many pollinators that their humming can be heard from a distance. (Honey produced from these flowers is prized for its exceptional flavor.) The fragrance of the flowers intensifies in the evening, drawing fireflies, those beloved and beleaguered beetles*, and other nighttime native pollinators. And it has a benefit you did not know you were looking for: pendulous branches on mature trees will trail to the ground, making wonderful hiding places, imaginary forts, or leafy castles for favorite grandchildren. Grandchildren, being the unpredictable creatures they are, you will be happy to know that all parts of the tree are edible. In fact, the American linden is actively sought by foragers, the early leaves for salad and the flowers for tea.
This is Tilia americana, the American linden.
Native to the Northeast and central United States, American linden, also known as basswood, is a handsome, flowering shade tree. It grows rapidly, up to 2 feet per year, attaining heights of 60 to 100 feet, occasionally reaching 120 feet. The canopy is a rounded, slightly conical shape. The heart-shaped leaves are medium green on top and chalky gray-green on the underside, shimmering in a breeze; their fall color is yellow. Linden trees are larval hosts for many butterfly and moth species, including eastern swallowtail, mourning cloak, and red-spotted purple butterflies.
The name basswood comes from the sobriquet “bastwood” bestowed by early American settlers. Bast, the fibrous inner bark, was used by settlers and Indigenous peoples to make rope, thread, nets, mats, and textiles. The light soft wood was, and is, highly valued for carving and for musical instruments, from electric guitars to recorders and percussion instruments.
Carl Linnaeus, who classified and named nearly 20,000 plant and animal species (including Tilia americana in 1753), owes his own name to the linden tree. His father, the former Nils Ingemarsson, adopted the surname Linnaeus after a favorite three-trunked linden (linn in Swedish) he remembered from his childhood home in Sweden. Back stateside, American lindens got the nod from Frederick Law Olmsted, who included them in his 1874 General Plan for the U.S. Capitol Grounds, a 56-acre park surrounding the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Three of those original American linden trees remain today, remnants of Olmsted’s legacy.
If you are looking for a shade tree, you could do worse than to have one endorsed by Linnaeus and Olmsted, never mind all the other wonderful qualities it possesses. When you search the nurseries, be sure to look carefully for the scientific name. There are many lindens out there, but there’s only one that is native to the United States, Tilia americana, the American linden.
About Those Fireflies …
If you remember, as I do, the delight of chasing fireflies in a backyard garden bedazzled by their flashing, you will easily recognize their demise. There are many contributing factors – pesticides are a big one. So is light pollution, and one of the easiest things you can do to help fireflies is to reduce or eliminate outdoor lighting as much as possible – at least during the months when fireflies are active.
- Turn off unnecessary and decorative lighting.
- Lights needed for safety? Reducethe wattage and use red filters or replace white or blue LEDs with red LEDs.
- Put your outside lights on a timer or a motion sensor.
- And an especially simple fix: close your blinds or drapes at night.
Learn more from the Xerces Society:
xerces.org/publications/guidelines/conserving-jewels-of-night
Dorothy gardens in Belmont, where she lives with her husband, Steve, and their two dogs, Rosie and Jasper. She has six grandchildren — all perfect by definition — and has enjoyed introducing them to gardening. She has an abiding interest in nature and is always amazed by the wonders to be found in her own backyard.
