Click on the images help you identify an American basswood.
Form
Height is 60 to 80 feet with a diameter of 12 to 36 inches. More than one trunk is common, especially in forests. Trunk often continues straight into top of dense rounded crown.
Bark
Younger bark is light gray and smooth. Older bark is darker gray with shallow, vertical ridges.
Leaf
Simple, alternate on stem. Leaves are 3" to 6" long and nearly as wide, heart-shaped, saw toothed, and sharp pointed at tip. At maturity, leaves are thick, shiny, green above, paler underneath. Leaf color turns yellow to orange in autumn.
Fruit (seed)
Flowers bloom in midsummer and are pollinated by insects and bees to make honey. Fruits are rounded, nutlike drupes covered with short, thick, brownish wool and attached in clusters to a leafy bract that later acts as a wing to carry seeds away on the wind. Fruit often hangs on tree long into winter. Difficult to propagate from seed.
Range
Common throughout the state except in the extreme northeastern part. Grows chiefly on rich, water-deposited soil. Shade tolerant.
Wood uses
Wood is light, soft, tough, not durable, and light brown with scarcely distinguishable sapwood. The wood is used for carving, paper, wooden wares, furniture, trunks, crating, drawing boards, kegs, barrel heads, and lumber. The flexible fiber can be used to make rope, snowshoes, baskets, mats, and nets. Single-trunked basswood (linden) trees are recommended for ornamental and boulevard plantings. Learn more with our basswood in your yard video.