a small delight

One of the things I loved about summer in Chicago is when the linden trees on and near the campus bloomed.  The scent was one of those small delights that lift a day at least momentarily.

I typically associated linden flowers with a point later in summer, but perhaps I misremembered, or perhaps they were early this year.  In any case, on my first morning out on foot, I caught scent of them.  That was a good start to my morning, I have to say.  I wandered over to the trees to photograph the flowers.

And I did one other thing.  I'd always been told they were linden, and that's not incorrect, per se, but my plant identifying app on my phone called them American basswood.  Which, it turns out, is more or less the only native North American species from the linden family.

Fragrant AND educational!