70 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 
THE LIME OR LINDEN GROUP. 
Most of the members of the order Tiliacez are 
trees or shrubs. Some are herbaceous. They are 
closely related to the Mallows. 
They yield a mucilaginous juice, and the wood is 
used for a variety of purposes. Being white and 
light it is used commonly in turnery for ornaments 
and legs or arms of chairs, etc., and in carvings. In 
Sparmannia, a Cape of Good Hope plant, which has 
white flowers, the stamens if touched will move 
backwards. An Egyptian plant, Corchorus, serves as 
a pot-herb, and in an allied Indian species, or Jute, 
fishing-lines, nets, and bags are made from the fibre. 
Most of the plants have broad, ovate leaves, which 
are oblique, acuminate, toothed, downy below or in 
the axils of the veins, or smooth. The leaves are 
normally alternate, distichous, or in two rows, with 
stipules which fall soon after they mature. The 
flowers are in axillary corymbs with few flowers 
borne upon a peduncle, and below produced into a 
white membrane-like bract—a very characteristic 
feature. 
The plants are largely members of the Tropics, 
and there are over 300 species. 
The Common Lime is widely distributed through- 
out Europe. In England it is doubtfully native, the 
small-leaved lime being the more probably indigenous 
one. It does not grow usually at any high altitudes 
or much above 300 ft. above sea-level. But in 
