Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. VII 
NO. 14 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN. MASS. JULY 15. 1921 
Linden Trees. Midsummer is the time when the fragrant flowers of 
Linden-trees open and scent the air with their fragrance. Tilia, the 
name of the Linden, is one of the widely and generally distributed gen- 
era of the trees of the northern hemisphere; it is absent, however, 
from western North America, and no Linden has yet been found in 
the forests which cover the Himalayas. Eastern North America with 
fifteen species is richer in Lindens than all the rest of the world, and 
in eastern North America Lindens are found from New Brunswick 
westward to Lake Winnipeg and southward to northern Florida and 
northeastern Mexico. To the two species which grow in Canada an- 
other is added in New York and Pennsylvania; southward in the forests 
which cover the high slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and in those 
of the coast region of the Carolinas and Georgia the number increases. 
Lindens are common in all the Gulf states, and abound in eastern and 
southern Texas where five species and several varieties occur and where 
Lindens grow by the scanty streams, and under the bluffs of the Ed- 
wards Plateau, a region in which Lindens would hardly be expected to 
flourish. 
The ability of the southern species to grow in New England has still 
to be demonstrated in the Arboretum, and only three northern and one 
southern Appalachian species are established here. These are Tilia gla- 
bra, more often called Tilia americana, T. neglecta, T. heterophylla 
var. Michauxii, and T. monticola. Tilia glabra is a splendid great tree 
in the forests of the north where it was once abundant, with individ- 
uals more than a hundred feet high with trunks from three to four 
feet in diameter. Such trees are no longer common, for the wood of 
the northern Linden, usually known in commerce as white wood, has 
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