Sepals 5. Petals 5, spatulate-oblong. Stamens numerous; filaments cohering in 5 clusters with each other (in European species), or with the base of a spatulate petal-like body placed opposite each of the real petals. Pistil with a 5-celled ovary, and 2 half-anatropous ovules in each cell, a single style, and a 5-toothed stigma. Fruit dry and woody, indehiscent-globular, becoming 1-celled and 1--2-seeded. Embryo in hard albumen; cotyledons broad and thin, 5-lobed, crumpled.--Fine trees, with soft and white wood, very fibrous and tough inner bark, more or less heart-shaped and serrate alternate leaves (oblique and often truncate at the base), deciduous stipules, and small cymes of flowers, hanging on an axillary peduncle which is united to a ligulate membranaceous bract. Flowers cream-color, honey-bearing, fragrant. (The classical Latin name.) 1. T. Americàna, L. (BASSWOOD.) Leaves large, green and glabrous or nearly so, thickish; floral bract usually tapering at base; fruit ovoid.--Rich woods. May, June.--Here rarely called _Lime-tree_, oftener _White-wood_, commonly _Basswood_; the latter name now obsolete in England. 2. T. pubéscens, Ait. Leaves smaller (2--3´ long), thinner, and rather pubescent beneath; floral bract usually rounded at base; fruit globose, smaller (3´´ broad). (T. Americana, var. pubescens, _Man._)--N. Y. to Fla., and westward. 3. T. heterophýlla, Vent. (WHITE BASSWOOD.) Leaves larger, smooth and bright green above, silvery-whitened with a fine down underneath.--Mountains of Penn. to S. Ill., and southward. T. EUROPÆ̀A, the EUROPEAN LINDEN, several varieties of which are planted in and near our cities for shade, is at once distinguished from any native species by the absence of the petal-like scales among the stamens. This tree (the _Lin_) gave the family name to _Linnæus_. ORDER 22. LINÀCEÆ. (FLAX FAMILY.) _Herbs (rarely shrubs) with the regular and symmetrical hypogynous flowers 4--6-merous throughout, strongly imbricated calyx and convolute petals, 5 stamens monadelphous at base, and an 8--10-seeded pod, having twice as many cells as there are styles._ Represented by the genus, 1. LÌNUM, Tourn. FLAX. Sepals (persistent), petals, stamens, and styles 5, regularly alternate with each other. Pod of 5 united carpels (into which it splits in dehiscence) and 5-celled, with 2 seeds hanging from the summit of each cell, which is partly or completely divided into two by a false partition projecting from the back of the carpel, the pod thus becoming 10-celled. Seeds anatropous, mucilaginous, flattened, containing a large embryo with plano-convex cotyledons.--Herbs, with tough fibrous bark, simple and sessile entire leaves (alternate or often opposite), without stipules, but often with glands in their place, and with corymbose or panicled flowers. Corolla usually ephemeral. (The classical name of the Flax.) [*] _Flowers rather small, yellow; glabrous, 1--2° high._