Tilia heterophylla is a species of Tilia

Tilia

Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The greatest species diversity is found in Asia, and the genus also occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but not western North America...

native to mesic forests in eastern North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 from central New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 south to northernmost Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 and west to Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

; it is most common in the Appalachian Mountains

Appalachian Mountains

The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...

.

Its primary distinguishing characteristic from other North American Tilia species is the presence of dense felt (tomentum) of white hairs on the underside of the leaves. It has often been considered to be a variety of Tilia americana

Tilia americana

Tilia americana is a species of Tilia native to eastern North America, from southeast Manitoba east to New Brunswick, southwest to northeast Texas, and southeast to South Carolina, and west along the Niobrara River to Cherry County, Nebraska...

, as Tilia americana var. heterophylla, though some others place it as a species in a separate section of the genus, more related to other European

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n Tilia species with white tomentum on the undersides of the leaves, such as Tilia tomentosa

Tilia tomentosa

Tilia tomentosa is a species of Tilia native to southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, from Hungary and the Balkans east to western Turkey, occurring at moderate altitudes....

. The problem of its species status and placement in the genus is complicated by extensive natural hybridization with Tilia americana.

Description

Tilia heterophylla is a medium-sized to large deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 growing to 27 m tall with a trunk up to 90 cm diameter. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are large, very unequal at the base, 7–19 cm long and 6–14 cm broad, with a finely toothed margin; they are light green and smooth above, and silvery downy beneath. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s, larger than those of T. americana, are produced in clusters of 10–24 together. The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

is spherical, 13 mm diameter, downy, with the fruit bract pointed at the base.

The tree is not generally well known, but Professor Charles Sargent, in The Silva of North America, says of it:

"Few North American trees surpass it in beauty of foliage; and the contrast made by the snowy whiteness of the under surface of its ample leaves as they flutter on their slender stems, with the dark green of the Hemlocks and Laurels on the banks of rapid mountain streams produces one of the most beautiful effects which can be seen in the splendid forests which clothe the valleys of the southern Appalachian Mountains."

Uses

The wood is called basswood, and not distinguished from that of other species of Tilia.

The young leaves are edible, and can be made into a mild-flavored tea.