American basswood

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Arizona Mountains forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Blue Mountains forests

Canadian Aspen forests and parklands

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Central Tallgrass prairie

Central-Southern Cascades Forests

Chihuahuan desert

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries - an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15 to 30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.

Pollination

Self-fertile

A single tree flowers and sets nutlets on its own - basswood does not need a separate pollinizer. The pale-yellow June flowers are intensely fragrant and insect-pollinated; Missouri Botanical Garden lists the tree as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags special value to native bees and to honey bees, for which basswood is a noted nectar (honey) source.

Plants don't grow alone

Larval host

Butterfly

Eastern comma (Polygonia comma)

Eastern comma host palettes include basswood (Tilia); American basswood is the native Tilia anchor in the catalog, so this row makes the existing wildlife record visible from the plant page.

Larval host

Moth

Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus)

Nectar forage

Bee

European honeybee (Apis mellifera)

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags Tilia americana as having special value to honey bees; basswood is a noted nectar (honey) source, and Missouri Botanical Garden lists the fragrant June flowers as attracting bees.

Nectar forage

Bee

Common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens)

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags special value to native bees; bumble bees work the fragrant pale-yellow June cymes for nectar.

Nectar forage

Bee

Sweat bees (Lasioglossum spp.)

Small native sweat bees are part of the broad native-bee guild the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center notes basswood supports, though the source does not name genera.

Seed forage

Bird

Eastern songbirds (multi-species) (multiple species (Passeriformes))

Missouri Botanical Garden lists the tree as attracting birds; the pea-sized nutlets and seed are eaten by songbirds, though the source does not enumerate species.

Foliage forage

Mammal

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

For people

Not eaten by humans

Grown as an ornamental shade and street tree and commercially harvested - particularly in the Great Lakes region - for its soft, light wood used in furniture, shipping crates, boxes, and veneer (Missouri Botanical Garden). It is not a human food crop.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Ilex opaca

American holly

A tough, medium-sized native tree of the eastern and midwestern United States, grown as much for its showy edible orange fruit as for its distinctive thick, dark gray bark broken into rectangular blocks. Small urn-shaped white-to-greenish-yellow flowers open in May and June, and the sweet fruit ripens after frost. Largely dioecious - a female tree needs a male pollinizer nearby to set fruit - and notably drought- and walnut-tolerant once established.

The largest native cherry of eastern North America - a medium-to-large deciduous shade tree that hangs elongated racemes of small white flowers in spring, then ripens drooping strings of pea-sized fruit from red to near-black in late summer. The fragrant white bloom feeds bees while the fruit is eaten by 33 species of birds and many mammals; it is also a workhorse larval host, supporting the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a string of giant silk and sphinx moths. Every part except the ripe fruit is cyanide-bearing and toxic.

A medium-sized native deciduous tree of eastern North American rich woods, bottomlands, and wood margins - upright-spreading to rounded, typically 35 to 50 feet tall (occasionally to 80 feet). Noted for milky sap, often-lobed toothed leaves, reddish-brown bark, and showy edible fruit that ripens from red to dark purple. The fruit feeds birds and mammals, and the inconspicuous spring flowers give way to a heavy late-spring crop.

A small native tree with white spring flowers, edible summer berries, and copper to red fall color.

Amelanchier canadensis

Canadian serviceberry

Shrub

A native deciduous willow of northern North America famous for the silky, silvery catkins - the "pussies" - that swell on bare stems in late winter, often while snow is still on the ground. Usually grown as a large multi-stemmed shrub 6 to 15 feet tall, it thrives in moist to wet soils and tolerates drier ground better than most willows. Dioecious (separate male and female plants), it is one of the earliest pollen and nectar sources of the year and a documented host for a wide range of native bees and Lepidoptera.

Shrub