"Now lost Amidst a glooming wilderness of shrubs Regale the smell; and to the enchanted eye And pale laburnum's pendent flowers display This shrub is so absolute in its love of the country, that it will not live in London, nor thrive near it. *Guelder Rose. TILIACEA. LIME TREE. TILIA. POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA. French, tilleul; Italian, tiglio, tiglia; English, lime, or linden, (which is the German name also), and in Lincolnshire, bast, because ropes are made from the bark. Gerarde adds line tree. The Lime, Tilia Europea, is a tall upright tree, with smooth spreading branches, thickly clothed with alternate heart-shaped, smooth, serrate leaves, pointed at the ends, of a very cheerful green. The flowers are of a yellowish colour, delightfully fragrant, especially at night, growing in clusters of four or five together, and blowing in July. The Lime is a native of most parts of Europe, and of Japan. The small-leaved variety grows wild in many parts of England, in woods, and on grassy declivities. The common, and other varieties, are more commonly seen cultivated in hedges, avenues, parks, &c. and before houses. It will bear the smoke of London tolerably well. The Lime-trees in St. James's Park are said to have been planted at the suggestion of Mr. Evelyn; probably with a view to the improvement of the air, which they have been thought to effect. per The Dutch plant Limes in abundance by their canals; and during July and August the whole country is fumed with their blossoms, overcoming the unpleasant effluvia arising from the stagnant water at that season. Miller complains that it has been much neglected, because it sheds its leaves early in the autumn, and does not put them forth till late in the spring. They begin to open about the twelfth of April, and are all out by the eighteenth. Evelyn, too, complains of the " shameful negligence of our countrymen in not being better provided of a tree so choice and universally acceptable." For in his time they were imported from Holland and Flanders at a great expense, and that, too, "whilst our own woods spontaneously produce them, and though of a somewhat smaller leaf, yet altogether as good, apt to be civilised, and made more florid." It is indeed a most beautiful tree; it grows in a handsome form, and to a large size; the foliage is elegant, and of a fine verdure; its ample leaves and spreading branches afford an admirable shade, and the fragrance of its blossoms is delightful : “Clear was the song from Philomel's far bower ; Grateful the incense from the lime tree flower." Moreover, it will resist wind and storm. KEATS. Mr. Martyn remarks, that it was highly esteemed by the Romans for its shade, and numerous uses, and quotes the following line from Pliny in praise of it : "Tiliæ ad mille usus petendæ." "Lime trees for a thousand uses sought." "The flowers," says Dr. Hunter, "begin to open about the fifteenth of May, and are in full blow about the thirteenth of July, when they appear of a white colour, and have a very fragrant smell. These are very grateful to bees; for which reason Virgil, in his beautiful description of the industrious Corycian, places the Lime and the pine in the neighbourhood of his hives:" "Ergo apibus fetis idem atque examine multo Mella favis; illi tiliæ, atque uberrima pinus." Georgic iv. "He, therefore, was the first to abound with pregnant bees, and plentiful swarms, and to squeeze the frothing honey from the combs: he had limes and plenty of pines." MARTYN'S Translation. Martyn observes, in a note upon this passage, that Columella affirms that the Lime is hurtful to bees. Evelyn praises the Lime as being "the most proper and beautiful for walks, as producing an upright body, smooth and even bark, ample leaf, sweet blossom, the delight of bees, and a goodly shade at the distance of eighteen or twenty-five feet.” There is certainly no contradiction in what these authors say of the Lime being agreeable to bees, and Columella's assertion that it is injurious to them: but it is strange that Virgil should either not know, or that he should overlook such a circumstance, since he is very particular in warning the husbandman against such plants as will hurt the bees; and although the Lime is not in-timately connected with those busy insects in the passage just quoted, yet a little further on he speaks of it expressly as affording them food : 66 66 pascuntur et arbuta passim, Et glaucas salices, casiamque, crocumque rubentem, They feed also at large on arbutes, hoary willows, cassia, and glowing saffron, and fat limes and deep-coloured hyacinths." The Russian peasants are said to suspend their beehives in the woods purposely that the bees may have the early blossom of the Lime, which is thought to produce very fine honey. The Lime grows in Russia more abundantly than any other tree, with the exception of the birch; and what the birch is to the Swedish peasant, the Lime is to the peasant of Russia. The thick bark is made into baskets for carriages and sledges, into boxes and trunks; and helps to roof their cottages. Of the inner bark are made mats, many of which they export; the rind of the young shoots they braid into shoes. "The wood is sawn into boards, wrought up into canoes, and burned into pot-ashes, and from the blossom of the Linden tree the bees suck an excellent nourishment *." Evelyn says, that in a rich loamy soil, which the Lime affects, "its growth will be most incredible for speed and spreading." Of the several varieties, the Red-twigged is the most desirable, from the very circumstance which gives it the name; the red twigs finely contrasting with the green foliage. There are several Lime trees upon record remarkable for their magnitude: it will suffice to mention a few of the most considerable. Evelyn speaks of one in Switzerland forming a bower with its branches, capable of containing three hundred men sitting at ease. It has a fountain, set about with many tables, formed only of the boughs, to which they ascend by steps, all kept so accurately, and so very thick, that the sun never looks into it. "But this," continues he, " is nothing to that prodigious Lime of Neustadt, in the duchy of Wirtemberg, so famous for its monstrosity, that even the city itself receives a denomination from it, being called by the Germans Neustadt ander grossen Linden, Neustadt by the great Lime tree.' The circumference of the trunk is twenty-seven feet four fingers." He mentions a third, the account of which he received from Sir Thomas Brown of Norwich, and gives in his own words. We will hope he speaks from his own knowledge, since whatever he heard, his "active faith" would credit. * Tooke's Survey of Russia, vol. iii. p. 368. |