17 



has served for years of the avenue associated with all of 

 the festivals and pageants of the Prussian capital, is 

 cruelly blasted. He writes : "Nearly all of the trees 

 are the coramon European linden, although there may 

 be among them some of the other species as they are 

 found in the streets of Berlin. It will be hard to find 

 uglier or more unsatisfactory trees than those in this 

 famous street, which does not at all come up to its 

 reputation. Most of the old trees are dead or dying 

 and have been replaced from time to time by younger 

 ones. The worst part of the Tremont-street mall in 

 Boston Common is splendid in comparison with it." 



In the order of their flowering the Dutch linden 

 comes first, followed closely by the European, and the 

 American last.* The fruit of these trees, in the form 

 of little pills, falls to the ground late in the season and 

 has served admirably its purpose as part of the materia 

 medica in many a childish "pothecary shop." There 

 are many fine specimens of the foreign lindens in 

 Marblehead, Newburyport and Portsmouth — the largest 

 specimen of the American linden noticed being near the 

 Boardman house in Putnamville, and there is another in 

 the yard of the Rogers house, on the main street, Wen- 

 ham. Our native linden furnishes the bass-wood, a 

 name by which the tree is most frequently called, or 

 white wood. Or rather it used to do so ; but now the 

 white wood used by our carpenters is either from the 

 cucumber tree or the tulip tree, and some persons are 

 even innocent enough to accept poplar for white wood. 



The tamarix or tamarisk trees are nearer relatives of 

 the lindens than any other of our trees, although they 



* The European and Dutch lindens were in flower June 30, 

 1891, the American Linden on July 21, just three weeks later. 



