Stopping to Smell the Lindens

In some vague and irrational way, I always thought it was MY fault when, year after year, the linden tree beside the driveway failed to produce that glorious fragrance for which it's famous. Did I cut back the low-hanging branches too recklessly? Did I neglect to fertilize? (But who fertilizes an eighty-foot tree?) The long green wings (which are called bracts, I think) appeared, yes. The little pods dangling beneath, yes. But beyond that, nothing except a carpet of desiccated fruit strewn across the driveway. I had dim recollections of a time when the tree was sweet. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Take a look at this glorious specimen.

And then, this year, everything went right. Perhaps it was all the rain. Whatever the case may be, the tree fruited up handsomely and began to emit that wonderful aroma for which it's famous.

Yet as I mentioned this phenomenon to friends, it soon became clear to me that the scent of the linden isn't so famous after all. They hadn't noticed the smell, and often had no idea what a linden tree looks like.

In case you think I'm exaggerating the appeal of this delectable, if short-lived, summer phenomenon , here is a passage from A Natural History of Trees by Donald Culross Peattie, written in a age when rhapsodic prose was nothing to be ashamed of:  

"When the shade begins to be heavy and the midges fill the woods, and when the western sky is a curtain of black nimbus slashed by the jagged scimitar of lightning, when the wood thrush seldom sings ex­cept after rain and instead the rain crow, our American cuckoo, stutters his weary, descending song — an odor steals upon the moist and heavy air, unbelievably sweet and penetrating.

"It is an odor that comes from no bed of stocks, no honeysuckle. More piercing, yet less drugging, than orange blossoms, it is wafted, sometimes as much as a mile, from the flowers of the Linden. All odors have evocative associations to those who know them well — wild grape, wild Crab, wild rose and honeysuckle. The odor of the Lindens in bloom brings back to many of us the soaring wail of the treetoads, the first fireflies in the dusk, the banging of June beetles on the window screens, the limpness of the flags at Fourth of July, and all that is a boy’s-eye view of those languorous first days of vacation from school."

Reading further in Peattie's entry, I came upon a bit of trivia that I found reassuring:  the linden produces its honey only  two or three out of every five years. That certainly explains the intermittent and unpredictable behavior of our tree.

This afternoon Hilary and I swept the flowers, seeds, and bracts off the driveway. There are many still hanging, so we'll have to do it again, but we'd just returned from a bike ride down to Loring Park followed by lunch at an Ecuadoran café in Bryn Mawr, and we felt like being outside. It didn't take long.

Unlike the rose, you don't have to "stop and smell" the linden. At its best, the aroma is pervasive. Most often, you smell it first, then look around for those pale green bracts and flowers hanging from the dark green heart-shaped leaves of a nearby tree.

In case you're interested, the sidewalk on the south side of Gold Medal Park, next to the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis, has been planted with a double row of lindens. There's usually a meter available on the east end of the park. Why not drive down this weekend, get an ice cream cone at Izzy's across the street, and take a stroll along that shady boulevard, and maybe even up the spiral trail to the top of the hill? You might catch a lingering whiff of this heavenly midsummer aroma. Then you'll recognize it the next time it comes floating by.