LIME  ,1 or

LINDEN . The lime trees, species of Tilia, are familiar timber trees with sweet-scented, honeyed flowers, which are borne on a common peduncle proceeding from the middle of a long bract . The genus, which gives the name to the natural order Tiliaceae, contains about ten species of trees, natives of the north temperate zone . The general name Tilia europaea, the name given by Linnaeus to the European lime, includes several well-marked sub-species, often regarded as distinct species . These are: (1) the small-leaved lime, T. parvifolia (or T. cordata), probably wild in woods in England and also wild throughout Europe, except in the extreme south-east, and Russian Asia . (2) T. intermedia, the common lime, which is widely planted in Britain but not wild there, has a less northerly distribution than T. cord eta, from which it differs in its somewhat larger leaves and downy fruit . (3) The large-leaved lime, T. platyphyllos (or T. grandifolia), occurs only as an introduction in Britain, and is wild in Europe south of Denmark . It differs from the other two limes in its larger leaves, often 4 in. across, which are downy beneath, its downy twigs and its prominently ribbed fruit . The lime sometimes acquires a great size; one is recorded in Norfolk as being 16 yds. in circumference, and Ray mentions one of the same girth . The famous linden tree which gave the town of Neuenstadt in Wurttemberg the name of " Neuenstadt an der grossen Linden " was 9 ft. in diameter . The lime is a very favourite tree . It is an object of beauty in t This is an altered form of O .

Eng. and M . Eng.

lind ; cf . Ger . Linde, cognate with Gr. tXL.rsi, the silver fir . " Linden " in English means properly " made of lime—or lind—wood," and the transference to the tree is due to the Ger . Lindenbaum . the spring when the delicately transparent green leaves are bursting from the protection of the pink and white stipules, which have formed the bud-scales, and retains its fresh green during early summer . Later, the fragrance of its flowers, rich in honey, attracts innumerable bees; in the autumn. the foliage becomes a clear yellow but soon falls . Among the many famous avenues of limes may be mentioned that which gave the name to one of the best-known ways in Berlin, " Unter den Linden," and the avenue at Trinity College, Cambridge . The economic value of the tree chiefly lies in the inner bark or liber (Lat. for bark), called bast, and the wood . The former was used for paper and mats and for tying garlands by the ancients (Od. i . 38; Pliny xvi .

14 . 25,

xxiv . 8 . 33) . Bast mats are now made chiefly in Russia, the bark being cut in long strips, when the liber is easily separable from the corky superficial layer . It is then plaited into mats about 2 yds. square; 14,000,000 come to Britain annually, chiefly from Archangel . The wood is used by carvers, being soft and light, and by architects in framing the models of buildings . Turners use it for light bowls, &c . T. americana (bass-wood) is one of the most common trees in the forests of Canada and extends into the eastern and southern United States . It is sawn into lumber and under the name of white-wood used in the manufacture of wooden ware, cheap furniture, &c., and also for paper pulp (C . S . Sargent, Silva of North America) .

It was cultivated by

Philip Miller at Chelsea in 1752 . The common lime was well known to the ancients . Theophrastus says the leaves are sweet and used for fodder for most kinds of cattle . Pliny alludes to the use of the liber and wood, and describes the tree as growing in the mountain-valleys of Italy (xvi . 3o) . See also Virg . Geo. i . 173, &c.; Ov . Met. viii . 621, x . 92 . Allusion to the lightness of the wood is made in.Aristoph .

Birds, 1378 . For the sweet lime (Citrus Limetta or Citrus acida) and lime-juice, see

LEMON .