THE MALLORN TREE. Golden tree of Lothlorien. The mallorn was a great and beautiful tree. Its bark was smooth and silver-grey. The leaves of the mallorn turned golden in autumn. The golden leaves remained on the tree through the winter and fell to cover the ground in the spring. Then new leaves sprouted - green on top and silver underneath - and golden flowers bloomed on the branches. Mallorn-trees originally grew on Tol Eressea, the island off the coast of Aman in the Undying Lands. Mallorn-trees may also have grown in the realm of Gondolin in Beleriand. The Elves brought mallorn-trees to the Men of Numenor and they grew on the shores around the Bay of Eldanna. Tar-Aldarion, the sixth King of Numenor, gave silver nuts of the mallorn as a gift to Gil-galad in Lindon in Middle-earth. The mallorn-trees did not take root in Lindon, but Galadriel brought some of the nuts to Lothlorien and planted them. Under her care, the mallorn-trees grew and flourished and Lothlorien became known as the Golden Wood. The city of Caras Galadhon in Lothlorien was built in the branches of huge mallorn-trees. When the Fellowship came to Lothlorien in January of 3019, they spent the night in a flet in a mallorn-tree. The next day on Cerin Amroth, Frodo touched a mallorn and felt the vitality of the living tree. The Fellowship was given lembas wrapped in mallorn-leaves, and Galadriel gave Sam Gamgee a box of soil that contain a silver mallorn nut. After the War of the Ring, Sam planted the nut in the Party Field where the Party Tree had once stood. In the spring of 3020 a sapling grew with silver bark and long leaves. The mallorn blossomed with golden flowers on April 6. It was one of the finest mallorn-trees in the world and people came from miles around to see it. The word mallorn means "golden tree" from mal meaning "gold" and orn meaning "tree." The plural of mallorn is mellyrn, but mallorn-trees is also an acceptable plural. The Quenya word is malinornë, plural malinorni.