Organic Forest Plants & More

Basswood (Tilia americana L.)

Trees and Shrubs

Zones

: 3-8

Duration: Perennial

Growth Habit: Tree

Mature Size: Height: 120-140 ft. Height at 20 years: 60ft. Diameter: 4-4.5 ft.

Flowers: May - early July

Fruit: September - October

Common alternate names for Basswood:  linn, white basswood (var. heterophylla), American linden, whitewood, bast tree, black lime tree, American lin tree, American lime tree, beetree, daddynut tree, monkeynut tree, whistlewood, white lind, red basswood, yellow basswood, wickup.

Scientific name for Basswood: Tilia americana L.

Planting Information: 

Prefers sandy, loamy, and well-drained soils. It is not adapted to clay soils.

Needs partial shade to full sunlight.

Colors: Leaves: deciduous, golden-yellow in fall. Flowers: yellow-white, fragrant. Fruit: covered in thick, reddish-brown fuzz. Bark: smooth, gray.

Edible - food uses of Basswood:

Native Americans used fresh basswood sap, which contains moderate amounts of sugar, as a watery drink or boiled it into syrup. They also ate young basswood leaves and used the cambium for soups and breads.

The flowers, carefully dried in the shade, can be used to make a tea.

Honey: Basswood is a prolific nectar producer and pollination by honeybees results in a choice grade of honey.

Healing medicinal qualities of Basswood:  

Various medicinal uses were made of leaf and bark extracts, and Iroquois used freshly cut bark as an emergency bandage for wounds.

Other uses for Basswood: 

Ornamental: The Basswood is commonly useBasswood is planted as a shade tree or ornamental. Basswood grows faster than most other northern hardwood species (for sites of smaller size or with compacted soils, other Tilia species may be more suitable). Basswood is said to be a soil-enriching species, bringing calcium and magnesium up from deep in the soil profile and depositing it in leaf litter on the surface. 

The glossy leaves and smooth gray bark are outstanding landscape qualities.

Timber: Basswood is still valued for its soft, light, easily worked wood, especially for turned items and hand carving.  Other woodworking uses included boxes, toys, woodenware, drawing boards, veneer, venetian blinds, excelsior, and pulp.

Fiber: Native Americans and settlers used the fibrous inner bark ("bast") as a source of fiber for rope, mats, fish nets, and baskets.

Wildlife: 

Basswood is good browse and buds are important for birds and deer in winter. Fruits are eaten by birds and small mammals. The wood decays easily and produces many cavities (especially in trees past 120 years of age), which are used by cavity-nesting animals (wood ducks, pileated woodpeckers, other birds, and small mammals).

General description and characteristics of Basswood:

American basswood (Tilia americana), northernmost Tilia species, is a large, rapid-growing tree of eastern and central hardwood woodlands. Best growth is in the central part of the range on deep, moist soils; development is vigorous from sprouts as well as seed. American basswood is an important timber tree, especially in the Great Lakes States. The soft, light wood has many uses in wood products. The tree is also well known as a honey-tree, and the seeds and twigs are eaten by wildlife. It is commonly planted as a shade tree in urban areas of the eastern states where it is called American linden.

It is a native, large deciduous tree, the bark gray and furrowed with flat ridges. Leaves deciduous, alternate, more or less unevenly heart-shaped or the base often nearly truncate, petiolate, the blades 5-12.5 cm wide, thick and slightly leathery, with shallowly toothed margins, glabrous on both sides or with some pubescence on the lower surface. Flowers yellowish-white, 10-14 mm broad, very fragrant and nectar-bearing, in drooping, 6-20-flowered clusters hanging on a stalk that diverges from near the center of an oblong, leaflike and strongly veined bract 5-10 cm long. Fruits mostly globose, 8-10 mm broad, hard and dry, indehiscent. The common name is from “bastwood,” referring to use of the inner bark, the “bast,” for rope, baskets, etc.

Native Americans found many practical uses for the Basswood as a food source, medicine and woodworking