How big are the leaves HD? I think Basswood leaves are as large as your hand. Poplar would fit in your palm. Also, the fruit of basswood is more of a "berry", while poplars send out the "cottonwood" seeds early summer. I'm leaning towards some type of aspen/poplar/cottonwood variety.
The leaves will fit in my palm . I have some trees on the other side of prop with leaves as big and bigger than my hand , cut some of those a few years ago , they were pretty soft wood
I've been burning some aspen poplar this shoulder season. I've been pretty happy with it. One load in the evening is about all you could handle anyway. Thing is, you gotta keep it DRY - it soaks up water like a sponge. I've had mine under a tarp, and the stuff I've been burning from the middle and the end of the stack, you could light with a match. But the stuff that's under the "seam" between the two tarps, looks like it will need to get restacked and burned later. Threw a chunk of that on tonight and it smoked pretty heavy for about an hour.
So we have a distinct linden/basswood camp and an aspen/poplar/cottonwood camp. Good news is that I think its definitely one of the species above In all seriousness though, every single one of those species has an almost identical BTU content - similar to that of white pine or balsam fir - great for shoulder season or for starting more dense species.
Could give 'er the old "smell test". Basswood is supposed to have a pleasant smell when it's in bloom, but no distinct odor to the wood itself. If you've worked with poplar before, I'm sure you'll be familiar with the somewhat unpleasant smell. I'm sticking with Poplar - specifically White Poplar - the bark is a dead ringer for it, with all those little "dots" on it. There's only 1 type of linden with leaves that small, that I'm aware of: "littleleaf linden", but the bark doesn't quite match.
Well we will see when I cut er down . At any rate it is soft hard wood In the meantime I have a chit load of leaves to take care of. Front yard, side yard, and there is a driveway in the middle !! , back yard will be worse when the oaks and hickory's finish dropping