LINDEN 



was due to the lime-trees that covered its sides and crowned 

 its summit. We read that in obedience to Amphion's music, 



The Linden broke her ranks and rent 

 The woodbine wreaths that bound her, 



And down the middle, buzz ! she went 

 With all her bees around her. 



Homer, Horace, Virgil, and Pliny mention the lime-tree 

 and celebrate its virtues. As Ovid tells the old story of 

 Baucis and Philemon, she was changed into a linden and he 

 into an oak when the time came for them both to die. 



Herodotus says : " The Scythian diviners take also the leaf 

 of the lime-tree, which, dividing into three parts, they twine 

 round their fingers ; they then unbind it and exercise the 

 art to which they pretend." 



It is interesting to recall that Linnaeus, the great botanist, 

 derived his name from a linden tree. His father belonged to 

 a race of peasants who had Christian names only, but hav- 

 ing by his personal efforts raised himself to the position of 

 pastor of the village in which he lived, he followed an old 

 Swedish custom, common in such cases, of adopting a sur- 

 name. 



A very beautiful linden tree stood near his home, and be- 

 ing something of a botanist himself he chose Linne, the 

 Swedish for linden, and called himself Nils Linne or Nicholas 

 Linden. When his famous son Carl became professor of bot- 

 any at the University of Upsala, his name Linne was lat- 

 inized into Linnaeus, as we know it to-day. But when the king 

 of Spain conferred upon him a patent of nobility it was given 

 to him as Count von Linne or Count of the Linden tree. 



Like the Magnolia the Linden belongs to an ancient and 

 northern race. Tilia appears in the tertiary formations of 

 Grinnell Land in 82 north latitude, and in Spitzbergen. Sa- 

 porta believed that he found there the common ancestor of 

 the lindens of Europe and America. 



All the lindens may be propagated by cuttings and graft- 

 ing as well as by seed. They grow rapidly in a rich soil, but 

 are subject to the attacks of many insect enemies. 



29 



