Plant · P-147

American Basswood

Tilia americana

American Basswood is famous for the bees - mature trees hum audibly for several feet around when they bloom in early summer, giving one of the most prized honeys made. Its young leaves are edible raw in salad, its flowers make a fragrant, sweet tea, and its sap can even be tapped and boiled into a maple-style syrup, though the yield is light. It wants shade and steady moisture rather than open sun, doing best on a cool, sheltered north or east slope or creek bottom, and it is picky about origin - only the southern, limestone-country form tolerates alkaline soil, while northern nursery stock will yellow and struggle. The wood is soft enough that aging trees hollow into nest cavities for woodpeckers and wood ducks, a payoff that arrives decades after planting.