#tilia

Once the cherries and pears and apples in the park finished blooming I meant to keep up the flowering tree sequence, posting the one horse chestnut blooming and then the tulip trees and the fragrant black locusts and on to these, the American lindens, before finishing with the catalpas. (I no longer go back through the woods to the graceful blackhaw for fear of ticks).

They do, in fact, have big leaves. Bonus @purrdence at lower right.

And intriguing fruit.

AKA large-leaved lime, and broad-leaved lime, but not a citrus. It's actually in the Hibiscus family.

Flower photo by Warburg on Wikipedia.

First described by the Italian botanist and doctor Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723 – 1788), and named from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *ptel-eiā, meaning 'broad', via the Greek ptelea, meaning Elm tree. It's unrelated to the Elms, too. Since 'platyphyllos' (also Greek) means 'Broad-leaved' the name is 'Broad-leaved Broadleaf' the Bigleaved Linden.

Native to much of continental Europe, and parts of Britain, but naturalised over a wider area and a popular street tree. Since it is also good fodder, and the inner layer of the bark is a source of plant fiber, the species was probably spread widely by humans even before we needed some green in our cities. It prefers alkaline soil.

Fossils of the species date back at least 5 million years.

Tilia (AKA basswood in North America) is the only known ectomycorrhizal genus in the family Malvaceae.