THE LINDEN-TREE OF LINNHULT g 



ages of certain trees be correct, there are limes that 

 have lived a thousand and nearly twelve hundred years. 1 



This famous lime tree, according to Pulteney, one 

 of the most careful biographers of Linnaeus, stood on the 

 farm where he was born, and three progenitors of his 

 family took their names from it Lindelius, Tiliander, 

 and Linnaeus. This shows the inaccuracy of even a 

 careful historian, for Linnaeus was not born on a farm 

 at all, but at the parsonage house of RSshult, and his 

 ancestors who named themselves from the lime tree lived 

 at Hwitaryd, near by. It is not unusual for Swedish 

 families to name themselves from natural objects. 



The peasants regard the lime tree as sacred ; in early 

 spring they deck the graves of lost relatives with its 

 fresh green boughs. 2 



A large linden tree would always be an object of 

 note in that land where the pine, the spruce fir, and the 

 birch are the principal vegetation above the variegated 

 carpet of the ground. The tree in question may be here, 

 should be here, but I have not identified it, nor could I 

 hear of it. The tradition of its three branches dying at 

 the extinction of the three families and the dead stump 

 remaining is, I suspect, a legend. 



For those who care for the study of race, of descent 

 of talents and qualities through pure genealogies, the 



1 The lime is one of the most lasting of trees, living to 1,076- 

 1,147 years. This is measured by the concentric zones. Professor 

 Henslow considers De Candolle overrated the ages of his trees one- 

 third. 



2 Horace Marryat. 



