LIME OR LINDEN-TREE. 235 



rable branches of this patriarchal tree. Time and war 

 overthrew many such, and some, that were elaborately 

 ornamented, have been greatly injured, or else lie pros- 

 trate, memorials of foreign invasion and civil discord, 

 when rude soldiers bivouacked under the branches of the 

 old lime of Neustadt. 



But neither intestine broils, nor yet foreign aggressions, 

 have marred the noble lime-tree which grew on the small 

 patrimonial farm that pertained to the ancestors of Linnseus, 

 beneath the shade of which he played in childhood, and 

 from which they derived the surnames of Lindelius, Tili- 

 ander, and Linnaeus. That noble tree still blossoms from 

 year to year, beautiful in every change of season ; its leaves 

 in spring of a yellowish green ; its bark always smooth ; 

 its blossoms small and yellowish-white, shedding the most 

 delicious fragrance, and spreading a ready banquet for the 

 industrious bee. A passer-by might fancy that her relatives, 

 in swarming, had settled among the branches; but the 

 sound is merely the grateful hum of innumerable labourers 

 who have flown from the adjacent gardens. 



