I first stumbled across the praises of the linden tree
in the lyrics of the German-language Lied.
It is, I believe, Schubert's Winterreise cycle
-- who is that poet? Mueller? someone else? --
that sets to music a poem about 'der Lindenbaum.'

That most worthy of song accompanists, Gerald Moore,
translated 'Lindenbaum' as 'lime-tree', and I thought:
Now, hold on a minute!
The lime is a citrus fruit,
and the linden tree has nothing to do with citrus fruit!

Well, that conclusion is true enough, however
it is also true that in some places
linden trees are called lime trees.
Not where I grew up, around the USA's Great Lakes, however:
a linden tree was a linden tree, and that was that.

The question has been nagging me for years:
what is the big deal about linden trees?
I have never had any wisdom or folklore imparted to me thereabout.

So off I went to the World Wide Web, and whoa Nelly!
A great section of continental Europe is positively devotional
about linden trees.

And so,
I would be delighted to hear from anyone and everyone
about what singles out the linden tree from any other,
or how the linden tree is included in any category
of the interaction between humanity and nature.