Littleleaf Linden: Tree with a Past - Arbor Day Blog

By A Mystery Man Writer

Last updated 27 May 2024

Littleleaf Linden: Tree with a Past - Arbor Day Blog

Tilia cordata Few of our street trees have a heritage as rich as the littleleaf linden. We enjoy this transplant from Europe for its pleasing shape, dense canopy, and super-fragrant flowers, but to the ancients it was much more. Littleleaf linden is one of some 30 species of lindens native to the northern hemisphere, including our native forest tree, basswood. In Europe, littleleaf dominated the woodlands of England after the Ice Age and today it is the linden that stretches farthest north into Scandinavia. This was such a valued tree that there is evidence of it being planted and used for social purposes as early as 760 A.D. The special qualities of littleleaf and its kin evoke things romantic. Youths and maidens are said to have “danced wildly” around the village lindens. This probably was because in the Germanic and Norse countries, at least, the tree was special to Freya, the goddess of love, and Frigga, the goddess of married love and the hearth. No wonder, then, that women hoping for fertility would hug the tree or hang offerings in its branches. After dark, in Scandinavia, it was a good tree to avoid because it became one of the favorite […]