THE LINDEN 93 



ness to Chaucer, when he wrote, in his " Gierke's 

 Tale " : 



" Be ay of chere as light as lefe on Linde." 



It was, too, at this, the season of its virginal 

 beauty, that Mrs. Browning paid her rnore explicit 

 tribute to the Linden, of which she wrote : 



" Here a Linden-tree stood, bright'ning 

 All adown its silver rind ; 

 For, as some trees draw the lightning, 



So this tree, unto my mind, 

 Drew to earth the blessed sunshine 

 From the sky where it was shrined." 



The twigs form a zigzag, the terminal bud being 

 constantly suppressed ; but, lying in one plane and 

 giving off their leaves in a strictly alternate or dis- 

 tichous manner, they form a fiat spra} r . The flat, 

 blunt buds project outwards from the branches, and 

 when the leaves unfold, their outline and veining are 

 well worth attentive study. The toothing of their 

 edges is absent at the base, and the secondary veins 

 given off from the base of the midrib on the larger 

 side of the leaf are so big as to suggest rather a 

 " palmate " than a " pinnate " arrangement. Fine 

 tertiary veins are given off at right angles to the 

 larger ones, so as to form cross-ties between them; 

 and from these, and from the forking marginal 

 extremities of the larger ones, proceeds a complex 

 polygonal meshwork of still finer or quaternary veins. 



In summer the foliage of the Linden becomes 

 duller in tone, as do most leaves, from the dense 

 accumulation of their green colouring matter, or 

 chlorophyll, and of other substances within their 



