THE LIME. 



No tree indigenous to Great Britain presents so 

 large a variety of pleasing features as the Lime. 

 Less robust than the oak and chestnut, inferior in 

 stature to the elm and fir, and in umbrageousness 

 surpassed by the beech, in its own intrinsic qualities 

 this beautiful production of nature is nevertheless 

 on a par with all, and among trees is the analogue of 

 that happy condition of body which the Greeks 

 denominated eucrap/co? neither fat nor lean, but 

 gracefully intermediate. In the Lime, too, we are. 

 reminded of that other elegant intellectual habit of 

 the ancient dwellers by the blue ^gean, which led 

 them to apply to massive and vigorous plants the 

 epithet of " male," and to delicate and tender ones 

 of similar profile and physiognomy, the corresponding 

 and very expressive one of " female." The Greeks 

 had but the faintest idea of the existence in plants 

 of Sex; the clear knowledge of this truth belongs 

 indeed to the last two centuries. They had sufficient 

 appreciation, nevertheless, of the universal dualism 

 of nature, to speak of things in a certain vague and 

 general manner as masculine and feminine; and 

 hence to this day, and every day, we have in use 

 the pretty names " Filix-mas " and " Filix-foemina," 

 or shield-fern and lady-fern. Whatever learned no- 



