302 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



purposes in parks, arboreta, at the fringe of forests, or in the 

 neighbourhood of towns, they are especially adapted ; they 

 afford, too, an excellent feeding ground for honey-bees 

 whilst in flower in June and July. 



Requirements as to Light. The lime is neither strictly 

 classifiable among the light-loving nor yet among the shade- 

 bearing trees ; it stands along with the elms, alders, and 

 maples on the debatable ground between the two main 

 sections, to one or other of which it may be assigned 

 according to the nature of the soil on which it grows, 

 depth and moisture being the factors principally determin- 

 ing the issue. From the character of its foliage and the 

 considerable amount of shadow cast by the crown, which 

 renders it somewhat unsuitable for standards over coppice 

 it should prima facie belong to the shade-bearing trees ; but 

 the other features of its development its clear and rapid 

 bole-formation when grown in close canopy, and its increased 

 demand for growing-space when it passes from the pole- 

 forest to the tree-forest stage of growth characterise it 

 rather as naturally belonging to the light-loving class. This 

 is certainly the case when it is grown as coppice, for the 

 shade of standards at once interferes with the reproductive 

 power of the stools except where the climate is genial and 

 warm, and the sunshine bright and constant. No practical 

 difference is observable between the two species in regard to 

 the amount of shade they can bear. The large-leaved 

 species comes first into leaf in May, though both are 

 distinctly backward in this respect; but it also loses its 

 foliage much earlier than the small-leaved lime, which is on 

 the whole the better deserving of cultivation in Britain. 



Attainment of Maturity and Reproductive Capacity. 

 Owing to the summer here being less warm than on the 

 Continent, the lime only seeds occasionally. On the Con- 

 tinent it bears seed almost annually from about its thirtieth 



