THE LINDENS OR BASSWOODS This tropical family, with about thirty-five genera, has a single tree genus, tilia, in North America. This genus has eighteen or twenty species, all told, with representa tives in all temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the exception of Central America, Central Asia, and the Himalayas.
Tilia wood is soft, pale-colored, light, of even grain, adaptable for wood-carving, sounding-boards of pianos, woodenwares of all kinds, and for the manufacture of paper. The inner bark is tough and fibrous. It has been used since the human race was young, in the making of ropes, fish nets, and like necessities. It was a favorite tying material in nurseries and greenhouses until the more adaptable raffia came in to take its place. The bark of young trees is stripped in spring to make the shoes of the Russian peasantry. An infusion of basswood flowers has long been a home remedy for indigestion, nervousness, coughs, and hoarseness. Experiments in Germany have successfully extracted a table oil from the seed-balls. A nutritious paste resembling chocolate has been made from its nuts, which are delicious when fresh. In winter the buds, as well as the tiny nuts, stand between the lost trap per and starvation. The flowers yield large quantities of
nectar, and honey made near linden forests is unsurpassed in delicacy of flavor.
About the time of Louis XIV, the French fashion arose of planting avenues to lindens, where horse-chestnuts had formerly been the favorite tree. The fashion spread to England of bordering with "lime trees" approaches to the homes of the gentry. "Pleached alleys" were made with these fast-growing trees that submitted so successfully to severe pruning and training. All sorts of grotesque figures were carved out of the growing lime trees in the days before topiary work in gardens submitted to the rules of land scape art, and slower growing trees were chosen for such purposes.
In cultivation, lindens have the virtues of swift growth, superb framework, clean, smooth bark, and late, profuse, beautiful and fragrant bloom, which is followed by interest ing seed clusters, winged with a pale blade that lightens the foliage mass. One fault is the early dropping of the leaves, which are usually marred by the wind soon after they reach mature size. Propagation is easy from cut tings and from seed.