90 FAMILIAR TREES 



To the ancients the Lindens seem to have ap- 

 pealed rather by their utility than by their beauty. 

 It is doubtful whether Aristophanes, in the allu- 

 sion to the tree in his "Birds," is merely speaking 

 of a rival poet as being light as Linden-wood, or 

 is accusing him more specifically of wearing an 

 effeminate article of dress, strengthened in those days 

 by laths of Linden-wood in place of the whalebone of 

 modern times. Pliny, too, alludes to the lightness 

 of the wood, as well as to the use of the inner bark 

 for paper, when it was known as liber (so becoming 

 extended to books, and giving us the word " library "), 

 and also for tying garlands; whilst Virgil, in the 

 words (" Georgics," Book i.) 



" Caeditur et tilia ante jugo levis," 



(" A light Linden-tree also is felled betimes for the 

 yoke ") is referring to the use of its wood in the 

 making of the plough. 



Botanists must ever look with reverence upon 

 this tree ; for whether or not a meadow encircled 

 by a hedgerow of Lindens gave the family name 

 to our own great botanist, Lindley, it is tolerably 

 certain that one of these trees Growing near the 

 home of his ancestors furnished a cognomen to a 

 far greater than Lindley the immortal Carl von 

 Linne, better known as Linnaeus. 



Apart from any associations, however, the Lindens 

 are sufficiently beautiful and sufficiently useful to 

 command attention. They are straight-stemmed 

 trees, with smooth bark, either round-topped or, 

 when more perfectly developed, draped in equal 



