Tilia.] TiLiACE^,. 83 



Lamtcra arborea, L., escapes occasionally from cottage-gavdens, where it is very 

 common, into waste ground, but I apprehend has no better title to insertion here. 

 A few seedling plants were observed on the Dover, Ryde, in 1836, but this is a 

 place where " many a garden flower grows wild." About Sandown fort and cot- 

 tage, according to B. T. W. The natural habitat of this plant is upon maritime 

 rocks and islets, where it grows to 3 or 4 feet in height, with a stem of an inch or 

 more in diameter. It is a very frequent ornament of rustic gardens in the Isle of 

 Wight and in various parts of England, rising in favourable situations to a height 

 of 8 — 10 feet and upwards, with a subtigneous biennial or perennial stem, of 3 or 

 4 inches across, branching towards the top into a hemispherical head, garnished 

 with ample seven-lobed and plaited leaves as soft as velvet, which remain through 

 the winter in mild seasons. After once flowering, which it does ihe second or at 

 most the third year, the plant decays, and piesents an unsightly picture of half- 

 dried naked twi}is ; thus, the shortness of its duration greatly lessons its value to 

 the horticulturist. 



Order XVI. TILIACE^, Juas. 



" Sepals 4 — 5, deciduous, with valvular estivation. Petals 4 — 5, 

 often with a depression at the base, sometimes wanting. Stamens 

 distinct or polyadelphous at the base, generally indefinite. An- 

 thers 2-celled, opening longitudinally, introrse. Glands 4 — 5, 

 adnate with the petals .to the stalk of the ovary. Ovary 1 — 10 

 celled. Style 1. Capsule with 1 or many seeds in each cell. 

 Albumen fleshy, including an erect embryo." — Br. Fl. 



I. Tilia, Linn. Lime.* 



" Calyx 5-partite. Petals 5, with or without a nectary at the 

 base. Ovary 5-celled ; cells mth 2 ovules. Fruit 1-celled, 1 — 3 

 seeded."— 5r. FL 



Of this beautiful genus, more remarkable for the stately growth than the value 

 of its timber, and for the delicate fragrance of its blossoms and ample foliage, Bri- 

 tain possesses but one unquestionably indigenous species {T. parvifolia). The 

 broad-leaved limes, so common in plantations and avenues, appear to have been 

 introduced from mountainous woods on the continent, and though partly natural- 

 ized in hedgerows, to be nowhere indigenous in this country. 



f ? 1. T. parvifolia, Ehrh. Small -leaved Lime. "Nectaries 

 none, leaves smooth above glaucous beneath with scattered as 

 well as hairj' axillary blotches, branches and petioles glabrous, 

 fruit oblique with filiform ribs chartaceous brittle at length nearly 

 glabrous." — Br. Fl. -p. 77. E. B.t.l705. T. microphylla, Vent. 



* Our English Lime, Linden, Lyme, or Lind, are from the Saxon Lind, Ger- 

 man Linde, a lime-tree, which is probably so named from the extreme softness 

 and lightness of the wood, linde being an obsolete or poetic word for gelind, soft 

 or yielding. The quotations from Dryden in Johnson's Dictionary, art. " Lin- 

 den,'' are much in favour of this derivation. 



" Hard box and linden of a softer grain." 

 " Two neighb'ring trees, with walls encompass'd round. 

 One a hard oak, a softer linden one." 



