REMARKS ON THE LIME, OR LINDEN TREE. 195 



to be a spurious daughter of Taste. In vain did the lime fill the 

 sighing breezes -with delightful odours, — in vain were its agreeable 

 shade and pretty umbels offered as a ransom to appease Fashion, 

 offended by the litter of its early falling foliage ; her influence was 

 too great, and the lime bowed its noble head to the axe of Folly, leav- 

 ing its thinly scattered offspring to the protection of Obscurity, until 

 Reason return to resume his administration. Monsieur Louis Liger 

 remarks, in 1703, that the lime, or linden-tree, was then gone out of 

 fashion in the French plantations, being supplanted in favour by the 

 hornbeam and the elm. But our celebrated nurserymen, London and 

 "Wise, tell us, in 1106, that it was then more in use in England than 

 any other tree " for standards and espaliers, having found the incon- 

 venience of planting elms near the fruit trees, or good plants; because 

 the roots of the elm impoverish all the ground where they grow." It 

 is a fine tree for the pleasure garden, which induces me to offer re- 

 marks upon it, and it well deserves to be in every one. 



This tree is the 4>«Xvpa (philyra) of the Greek writers, and the 

 Tiliu of the Latin authors. It is thought that the Greeks named it 

 Philyra, because the inner bark formed thin sheets on which they 

 anciently wrote, instead of parchment or paper. The Latin name is 

 supposed to be derived from riXov, which signifies a feather, because 

 the flowers of this tree are produced from a kind of tongue, called 

 the bractes, which very much resembles a feather. The Italians 

 follow the Latin name Tilia, from which also the Spanish Teia, and 

 the French Tilleul, seem derived. 



The English title seems to be a corruption of the Dutch Linde or 

 Lindenboom, or the German Linden or Lindenbaum, as all our 

 early writers call it Line, or Linden-tree ; and as we have now one 

 species of the citrus-tree called Lime, it would be desirable to resume 

 the ancient name of this tree, and call it Linden, to avoid confusing 

 the two. 



The linden is a native of Europe, and, according to Thunbeig, of 

 Japan also. Mr. Alton makes it a native of this country ; but it is 

 hardly to be supposed that the able compiler of the Hortus Kewensis 

 could possibly follow back the register of each individual plant with 

 the scrutiny of a poursuivant at arms. 



We find no English name for this tree but what is evidently borrowed 

 from the Germans, and our earliest writers mention it as a rare tree. 



