The blossom is certainly - apart from the friendly, shady foliage crown - something particularly valuable about the linden tree. And not just for us humans. Here is a brief overview and a small plea for the honey-scented natural creation.
What is special about the lime blossom?
The lime blossom appears in June with delicate, pale yellow, stamen-rich flowers and a single bract. It serves as an important reproductive factor for the linden tree and has a honey-like scent that attracts bees. It is used for teas, tinctures and flavoring.
Biology of the lime blossom
Typical of the flowers of the linden tree is their long, narrow bract, which will later carry the ripe fruit through the air for seeding. Grown to this single bract is a stem on which several small, delicate, pale yellow flowers with many fine stamens spread out. The very numerous flowers appear in June, with the winter linden tree being about two weeks later than the summer linden tree. However, it takes many years for a linden tree to bloom for the first time.
The flowers form an important reproductive pillar for the linden tree. Although it can also reproduce vegetatively via shoots or root spawn, the generative method via flowers is the central one. The lovely, honey-like scent of the flowers also attracts numerous willing pollinators, especially bees, resulting in a high fertilization rate.
The characteristics of the lime blossom summarized again:
- delicate, stamen-rich, pale yellow flowers with a single bract
- first blossom of a linden tree only after many years
- Flowering time around June
- important but not the only reproductive factor
- honey-like scent, valuable bee pasture
What the linden blossom gives us
In addition to the wonderful, sweet scent in early summer, we also benefit from the lime blossom in other ways. It can also be used in a variety of culinary and medicinal ways. On the one hand, a tasty, cold-fighting, fever-reducing, sleep-inducing and digestion-promoting tea can be brewed from it. Linden blossoms can also be used for anti-inflammatory tinctures (€14.00 on Amazon). It is also particularly clever to use it as a flavoring agent, for example in home-made jams or your own liqueur preparations.
