Malinorni

Mighty beech-like trees that originally grew only in Aman. Their name comes from the Quenya for 'golden trees' (malinorni is the plural form: a single tree of this kind was known as a malinornë). In Middle-earth the more familiar Sindarin version of the name was used, and there they were called mallorn trees.

These trees grew to great heights on Tol Eressëa, and during the Second Age, Eldar from that island brought them as a gift to Númenor. There they grew only on the slopes above the harbour of Eldalondë, taking five hundred years to reach their full height. Their trunks were silver, and so were the undersides of their leaves, though they were green above. In winter, their leaves turned gold in colour, giving the trees their name, and did not fall until the following spring.

King Tar-Aldarion of Númenor gave some silver malinornë seeds to his ally Gil-galad in Middle-earth, and he in turn passed them on to Galadriel. This was the origin of the famous golden mellyrn that grew in Lórien. At the end of the Third Age, Galadriel continued the tradition by passing a mallorn seed on to Sam Gamgee, which he planted in the Party Field of Hobbiton in the Shire.