Please help ID this tree!

18 years ago

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping some of you experts will be able to help me identify this tree. My wife and I drove to a local riverside park (St. Charles, MO) today to observer the flooding problem. While there, we saw this really beautiful tree. The tree, which I'm sure was fully grown, had smooth bark and was maybe 25 feet tall and probably as wide spread. The flowers on the tree were very fragrant. In fact, the fragrance is what caught our attention in the first place. I've included a link to two photos of one small branch. You'll have to scroll to see the second photo, which is more of a close-up. The flowers, which are on the underside of the main leaves, grow out from the middle of a different kind of leaf(?) which seems a little strange. Anyway, any help with the ID will be greatly appreciate. I'd love to have one of these in my back yard!

Here's the link to the two photos... http://homepage.mac.com/adoerge/tree.html

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Comments (5)

kman04
18 years ago
I'm assuming this was a planted tree, and by the color of the flowers, the degree of tomentum(whiteness of the leaf underside), and what looks like pubescent first year twigs, it's a Silver Linden(Tilia tomentosa). The "...different kind of leaf..." you mention is a leafy flower bract, kind of like the showy white leafy flower bracts you see on Flowering Dogwood(Cornus florida), except the ones on Lindens aren't as showy. Also, if that tree was 25' tall, it was only about 1/2 full grown since they can grow to be 90' tall in cultivation in the US and 115' tall in the wild in SE Europe and SW Asia. The cultivar 'Sterling Silver' is quite common in the nursery trade.

The native White Basswood(Tilia heterophylla(or T. americana var. heterophylla)) is found wild in your area and looks similar, but is quite rare in the nursery trade. It usually has more white colored flowers and lacks pubescence(fine hair) on first year twigs which are smooth and somewhat glossy. All of which I don't see in your photo, and why I think it's the commonly planted Eurasian species.
kman04
18 years ago
I forgot to add that most all species of Linden/Basswood(those living on the other side of the pond like to call them Limes) have fragrant flowers which are also attractive to bees, but a bit toxic to them. I personally love when the Lindens are in bloom the fragrance can drift a long way on warm humid summer evenings and I think they look quite showy as well.
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pineresin
18 years ago
Silver Lime Tilia tomentosa.

Resin
Embothrium
18 years ago
Silver linden
(European) white linden

have been used for Tilia tomentosa in North America.
art33
Original Author
18 years ago
Hi kman04, pineresin and bboy and thank you all very much! Wow, I can't believe you folks were able to help me so quickly, how do you know all that stuff? I've never failed to get the help I need here at this GradenWeb site, I just love it! After you gave me the name of the tree, I looked it up on the Internet and yes, that is definitely the right tree.

And kman, you were right about the age of the tree. I went back today for another look and the tree is taller than what I had remembered, but not fully grown for sure. I'd say it's about 35 feet tall (maybe a little taller). I posted another shot of the full tree here... http://homepage.mac.com/adoerge/anotherlook.html

Anyway, thanks again all of you, your knowledge of trees simply blows my mind!