Linden vs. Lyndon

Let us start off today with a Druid Dichotomy. Which would you rather have in your yard, a tree, or an embalmed imperialist?

A while back I got this free tree. Gradually, it has gotten bigger. Now, this year it has flowered. This particular free tree is a linden tree. Some may call it by other names, but I call it a linden tree. Yepper, yesterday, I was standing next to my free tree espying it for herbivores. The herbivores eat on this particular tree a lot. So there I was,looking for those herbivores when my noggin stove up. Stove up, my noggin refused to remember any of the many names that particular tree is known by. So I went into the laboratory and hauled out a heavy tome of botanical nomenclature. Sometimes, a quick read of the index in such a tome restores me to regular normalcy versus stove up. In fact, generally, if I start out reading a botanical nomenclature index, the Goddess has pity on me and reveals an applicable name before I get all the way back to the Zygophyllaceae. In fact again, sometimes all I have to do is pick up the tome. The very act of hefting the tome may bring about divine intervention, and regular normalcy.

Skipping around, interestingly, one may substitute linden, for any tree name in any song, ever. Like,

linden tree, very pretty, and the linden flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor linden is impossible to eat

or

Oh, lindentree, oh lindentree

or

the oak and the linden trees seem to kiss the prairie breeze

or

she ran around the linden tree, I ran around to meet her,
she pulled up her petticoats, I pulled out fer Tulsa

or

swaying, beneath the lindens, lovers are pulling tendons

See.

But enough of all this foolishness. Consider instead, what is a leaf, what is a bract, is there such as a leafy bract?

Of all the trees, the linden tree may have the most interesting what not. We do know, don’t we, that the flower clusters of the linden are attached by a peduncle to a what not. But what should we name the what not? As you may see, the what not, is nowise similar in configuration to a linden leaf. So dare we call the what not, leaf, leaf like, or even leafy bract, when the what not is so plainly unfamiliar to an actual linden leaf? Merciful heavens!