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spruces, the harvesting of brushwood, grazing and the exploitation of phloem. The linden is a good tree for avenues. The dust of cities does not bother it and to a certain degree, it also absorbs dust. It belongs to those trees which grow well in the shade, but is often planted along wide roads, far from houses, so that it does not provide too much shade, given its large size, (for example, it does not help in the dehydration process of humid walls) and will not block views. As a decorative tree, it is only found in large gardens and parks. It had adorned village greens and hamlets in the Czech lowlands as well as the foothills since ancient times. It is often planted as a remembrance tree for historical events. Its leaf is a well-known symbol, the portrayal and stylization of which is found on bank notes, diplomas and other significant documents, flags, guild banners, signs and coats of arms (often together with a bee and beehives), etc. Many lindens are preserved in the Czech Republic as trees of remembrance. The linden tree has quality phloem suitable for doormats, shoes and rope. The wood is provided a raw material much sought-after by the wood-sculpting industry, especially for small objects, pencils, charcoal (as well as for the production of gun powder) and brushwood. The switches (sprouting from the lower portion of the trunk or from stumps) can be used for wicker baskets or as raw material for a basket-maker. The blossom is excellent pasturage for bees and is collected (as well as its membranous leaves) for medicinal tea. Despite the fact that the linden is a beloved tree, its use in terms of medicinal drugs has not been adequately examined. It is known to contain certain essential oils (containing farnesol, nerolidol and geraniol), mucus, tannic acid and flavones such as rutin, hyperoside, kvercitrin, iso-kvercitrin, astragalin, tiliroside, etc.). It also possesses the organic acids p-cumar and chlorogen, saponins and phytosterols. The drugs produced from the linden tree work not only to reduce perspiration and to help the gall-bladder system, but also diuretically and against twitching nerves. It is used in particular for colds, fevers, digestive or diuretic illness or for liver dysfunction. It is usually given as a tea, but in a blended tea format. Březina names the linden a total of four times (4/4/4; MD –/–, DW 1/1, PW 1/1, BC –/–, H 1/1, E 1/1) and in each instance, uses a noun and never the relative adjective “linden.” The fact that the linden was increasingly a decorative tree in Bohemia is attested by the introductory stanza of the poem Seconds (Dawn in the West, the image of the linden does not appear in his first collection), “With your breath of eternity you drop dew on my flowers, when my leas are parched, / my lindens tremble
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in front of the windows and ring against the glass with their branches; / my last nights, these nights float like clouds out of the sea / weighted down with the tremor of stars gone scarlet and age-old dreams.” It is well known that the linden flowers late in spring (May to June or July) and Březina incorporates this into his poem Noontime Ripening (Polar Winds), “… there radiate the hymns of the great deceased ones, sung for in vain centuries ago, / so that in their own time they could give off fragrances like lindens, that blossom, when the other trees are no longer in flower.” Within the fifth collection Hands, the final poem Time links the image of the linden tree with its most frequent pollinator, the bees, “The lindens that I planted for my brother’s beehives / the cathedrals that we built in the fire and the silence for your honor, / the feverish hands that shook in their work and in ecstasy, have long ago fused into the shining dust on the path of the thousands: / constellations by which we were able to give the sweetest of names to our yearning, / flicker to a different rhythm, to a game transformed before the eyes of those alive.” The poem entitled Pentecost is the last occurrence of this well-known tree in Březina’s poetic work; once again, in combination with the nature metaphors, the intensive fragrance of the lindens is recalled, “The heat of the sun is rising, the ears of grain hardening / whipping into our faces / and the lindens smell too strong in their tiredness. / The lips of the flowers shuddered with mercy and with fervor, they exhaled / and from the clouds of insects there erupted an exultation of confused voices, / the springs cried out in the forest depths, / the invisible sea thundered in the distance. / and the pulsation of our heart penetrated the entire land, / as if our blood was outpoured into millions of lives, / and it stormed through the vegetation’s vessels and blossomed and sang / and returned white with heat. / Our breath was the wind, vibrating the crowns of the trees, / it chased the waves on the water, / and was full of bees and birds, of seeds belonging to sparkling and whispering ears of grain / and our eyes, as if shut by the sun, / saw through the ever-brightening light.” Only two domestic fruit trees are mentioned in Březina’s poetic work, the apple tree and cherry tree. As far as the apple tree (Malus) is concerned, it is not entirely clear whether he refers to the typical domestic apple tree (Malus domestica Borkh) or whether he means the highly endangered, melliferous tree, the crabapple tree (Malus sylvestris Mill., synonymous with the Malus malus and the Britt., Pyrus malus). We will not concern ourselves any longer with these two trees, but will
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simply say that the apple tree is considered, even though its origin is somewhat uncertain, most likely to be the oldest fruit tree. Evidence for this has been found, in addition to other sources, in the plant remains acquired from bronze structures dating from the Neolithic period. Březina does not deal with the Asian apple tree, intentionally bred for Europe. Instead he deals with the crabapple, approximately 5–10 meters tall with its well-known fruit and hard, relatively heavy wood. As far as the domestic cherry tree (Prunus avium) is concerned, it is a melliferous tree like the apple. The cherry tree is approximately fifteentwenty meters tall, widespread throughout the world, planted in orchards and beloved for its fruit. Its hard wood is good for woodworking and carving, even though its longevity is shorter and it is not very resistant to fungi and insects. Resiniform cherry wood (in addition to the wood of the sour cherry tree, Prunus cerasus, found in southeast Europe, western Asia and northern India) is widely valued as an excellent wood for fishing rods with a high calorific value. Březina uses both the noun “apple tree’, as well as the relative adjective “apple tree”. Uses of the noun are found in 2/2/2; MD –/–, DW 1/1, PW 1/1, BC –/–, H –/–, E –/–; the noun is likewise mentioned in the fifth stanza of the poem Let Us Greet the Spring! (Builders of the Cathedral), “Let us greet the spring, the buds of fiery fragrance in the brother’s thoughts! / We hear the birds of all gardens in our own. And our words / fall to the ground with the snow of the flowering cherry trees and, like the queen of the bees, / take flight into the heights on their honeymoon and then return to give life!” The relative adjective “apple tree” also occurs in several instances (1/1/1; MD –/–, DW –/–, PW –/–, BC –/–, H –/–, E 1/1). In one example (the poem Brotherhood of Believers in the collection Polar Winds), the fruit of the apple tree is also recorded (apple tree, 1/1/1; MD –/–, DW –/–, PW 1/1, BC –/–, H –/–, E –/–), “And we picked our drunkenness like seeds on a single, mysterious grape cluster, / which ruptured with a touch, with the burst of a single grape: / the apples of a single tree which has been slit by our communal crimson blood, / the kisses of a single night when souls sing of death and future living, / in a single scarlet blaze of lips, forever the ecstasy of ill ones over a single flash.’ While the poem The Ball of the Eternal Dawns (Dawn in the West) indicates the path and further development of the poet’s imagination (and eventually his “art of life” as well), it is already possible to recognize his constant attempt to penetrate from the dark into the light, to burn through to the essence of life and the world (‘It was like a swarm of
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