Ancient forests in Denmark and the importance of Tilia .

Tilia species are important constituents of natural broadleaved, deciduous forests of Europe, but have vanished from many forests during the past millennium. In this chapter, a survey of Tilia in Danish forests is presented and compared with forest management, age and structure. Tilia cordata and T. platyphyllos are mostly found in natural, ancient forests, and appear to be convenient indicators of forest management and forest age. Most populations are very small, but a few remarkable stands of both species with thousands of individuals are still surviving. The results point to the urgent need for installing active conservation and management measures, together with monitoring, in order to stabilize the most threatened populations of endangered woody species in Danish forests in general, and of Tilia species in particular.