Scientific Name
Tilia tomentosa
The silver linden in the Regis Miniquad is the third largest one of its species in Colorado, earning a place on the Colorado Tree Coalition’s Champion Tree list. These trees can reach heights of 60 feet or more, so, at 40 feet tall, this tree still has the potential for more growth!
Most linden trees planted in Colorado landscapes are either the North American Tilia americana (basswood) or the European Tilia cordata (littleleaf linden), which has many popular cultivars. However, every so often, one encounters the silver linden, which is notable for the silvery-white underside of its leaves because of a covering of tomentum – a woolly, matted down. This characteristic very often passes without notice (who pays much attention to leaf backs other than botanists?), but when the wind blows just right, the canopy can flash from green to white. In other respects — leaf shape, flowering, seed production, fall color, etc. — the silver linden doesn't differ greatly from others of its genus. One notable characteristic of all these lindens is the intense fragrance of the early summer flowers, much beloved by honeybees. In some countries tea is made from an infusion of the linden flowers. Later in the year, the flowers give rise to nutlets the size of small peas, borne on long, thin bracts that people sometimes mistake for a different-sized set of leaves.
In recent years, all the linden species along Colorado’s Front Range region have been strong magnets for Japanese beetles which enjoy frolicking (wink-wink) on the leaves when they're not eating them. Luckily the foliage damage doesn’t seriously weaken the trees, and the insects’ population crest now appears to be subsiding. Compared to the other linden species, silver linden is more drought- and heat-tolerant, which reduces its vulnerability to the late-summer leaf scorch that often discolors other lindens. This may be the result of its native area, the Balkan countries and northern Greece, being drier than where our other common lindens grow naturally.