Distribution. Appalachian Mountains at altitudes usually from 2500°—3000°, Farmer Mountain, on New River, Connell County, Virginia, to Johnson City, Washington County. Tennessee, and to Highlands, Macon County, North Carolina.
15. [Tilia georgiana] Sarg.
Leaves ovate, abruptly short-pointed at apex, slightly unsymmetric and usually cordate on lateral branches and often oblique or truncate on leading branches at base, and finely dentate with glandular teeth pointing forward, when they unfold deeply tinged with red, covered above by fascicled hairs and tomentose below, when the flowers open the middle of June dark yellow-green, dull and scabrate above and covered below with a thick coat of tomentum, pale on those of lower branches and tinged with brown on those from the top of the tree, and conspicuously reticulate-venulose, and at maturity thick, dull yellow-green, pubescent or glabrous above, rusty or pale tomentose below, sometimes becoming nearly glabrous in the autumn, 2½′—4′ long and 2′—3′ wide; petioles slender, tomentose, 1′—1½′ in length. Flowers ¼′—⅓′ long, on slender pubescent pedicels, in compact slender-branched pubescent mostly 10—15-flowered corymbs; peduncle slender, densely pubescent, the free portion 1′—1½′ in length, its bract oblong to obovate, rounded at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, pubescent, becoming nearly glabrous, 2½′—4′ long and ¾′—1½′ wide, decurrent to the base or to within 1′ of the base of the peduncle; sepals ovate, acuminate, coated on the outer surface with pale pubescence and on the inner surface with pale hairs longest and most abundant at the base, not more than one-half the length of the lanceolate acuminate narrow petals; staminodia oblong-obovate to spatulate, acute, about two-thirds as long as the petals; style glabrous or furnished with a few hairs at the very base. Fruit ripens early in September on pubescent pedicels, depressed-globose, occasionally slightly grooved and ridged, covered with thick rusty tomentum, ⅕′—¼′ in diameter.
A small tree, with slender branchlets thickly coated during their first season with pale tomentum, and dark red-brown or brown and puberulous in their second year. Winter-buds covered with rusty brown pubescence, ¼′—⅓′ long.
Distribution. Coast of South Carolina, near Charleston; Colonel’s Island near the mouths of the North Newport and Medway Rivers, near Dunham, Liberty County, and at Brunswick, Glynn County, Georgia, to central and western Florida.
Tilia georgiana var. crinita Sarg.
Tilia pubescens Sarg., in part, not Vent.
Differing in the longer and more matted usually rusty brown hairs of the pubescence, usually less closely attached to the under surface of the leaves and often conspicuous on the young branches.