TILIACEvE 



45 



root being used to relieve coughs and colds. The 

 root is also used to dress wounds. 



One of the showiest of our garden flowers, the 

 Hollyhock (Althcea rosea), belongs to the same 

 genus as the Marsh Mallow, but is a much larger 

 plant. Other important foreign plants allied to the 

 Mallows are the Cotton Plants (Gossypium), which 

 have large lobate leaves, and bell-shaped red or 

 yellow flowers. The capsules are filled with a 

 cottony substance, surrounding and protecting the 

 seeds. 



Order XVI. Tiliacece (i genus) 



The Linden, or Lime Tree (Tilia europcea), is 

 much grown for its shade, and, like so many orna- 

 mental or useful plants, is considered to be rather 

 naturalised than indigenous in Britain. Like most 

 of our forest trees, it bears small and comparatively 

 inconspicuous flowers. They are pale green, and 

 hang in clusters. They have 5 sepals and petals, 

 and yield small nuts, generally containing only a 

 single seed. The leaves are broadly heart-shaped, 

 with denticulated borders. The flowers exhale a 



peculiarly sweet and powerful odour, which is 

 perceptible at some distance from the tree, and 

 is very attractive to insects. 



More than a hundred species of insects of various 

 Orders are recorded as feeding on this tree, the 

 great majority being the caterpillars of moths. 

 Two among them may be specially noticed. One 

 is the Lime Hawk-moth (Smerinthus tilia;). The 

 caterpillar is two inches long, green and rough, 

 with oblique stripes on the sides, red above and 

 yellow below, and a rough horn on the back, near 

 the extremity of the body, blue above and yellow 

 below. The moth is two or three inches in expanse, 

 with long and rather narrow irregularly dentated 

 wings, varied with grey, yellowish, and lighter or 

 darker green. It is perhaps the commonest of the 

 Hawk-moths in the neighbourhood of London. The 

 other Moth we propose to notice is the Canary- 

 shouldered Thorn (En nomas tiliaria), which has 

 a brown humped looper caterpillar ; but the Moth 

 itself is stouter-bodied than Looper Moths generally 

 are. It is yellow, with brown lines on the fore- 

 wings, and the head and thorax are clothed with 



