Tilia 1^75 



This species is perhaps the handsomest of all the limes, on account of its shining 

 foliage, which is very late in falling in autumn, and seems to be free from insect 

 and fungoid attacks and from honey dew. It is apparently quite as hardy as the 

 common lime, and young trees at Kew are remarkably thriving and healthy. It 

 was unknown in Loudon's time, and seems to have been introduced a short time 

 before 1866, when it was first accurately distinguished by Koch. It is rather rare 

 in cultivation in England, though it is planted in Berlin and other German cities,^ 

 and thrives^ in the Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts. (A. H.) 



TILIA TOMENTOSA, White Lime 



Tilia tomentosa, Moench, Verz. Ausl. Bdume Weissenst. 136 (1785); V. Engler, Monog. Gait. 



Tilia, 116 (1909); Schneider, Laubholzkunde, ii. 386 (1909). 

 Tilia alba, Aiton,^ Hort. Kew. ii. 230 (1789), and iii. 300 (1811); Waldstein and Kitaibel, Icon. 



PI. Hung. i. 2, t. 3 (1802) ; Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i. 372 (1838). 

 Tilia pallida, Salisbury, Prod. 367 (1796). 



Tilia rotundifolia, Ventenat, Mim. Inst. Paris, iv. 12, t. 4 (1803). 

 Tilia argentea, Desfontaines, in De Candolle, Cat. PL Hort. Monsp. 150 (18 13). 

 Tilia petiolaris, De Candolle, Prod. i. 514 (1824) (not J. D. Hooker). 



A tree, attaining 100 ft. in height and 15 ft, in girth, usually with markedly 

 ascending branches. Young branchlets covered with white stellate tomentum, 

 more or less retained in the second year. Leaves (Plate 407, Fig. 3), about 3 

 to 5 in. across, nearly orbicular, cuspidate at the apex, cordate or truncate at the 

 base ; margin often lobulate, serrate or biserrate, the serrations ending in short 

 blunt cartilaginous points ; upper surface green, with scattered stellate pubescence ; 

 lower surface covered with a dense whitish tomentum, without axil-tufts ; petiole 

 stout or slender, less than half the length of the blade, stellate-pubescent. Buds, 

 with three external grey tomentose scales. 



Flowers, in seven- to ten-flowered pendulous tomentose cymes, which are shorter 

 than the leaves ; bract tomentose, sub-sessile ; sepals tomentose, clothed with long 

 hairs at the base within ; petals glabrous, longer than the sepals; staminodes slender, 

 spatulate, shorter than the petals ; stamens, shorter than the staminodes, numerous, 

 with the halves of each anther on a distinct short stalk ; ovary ovoid, tomentose ; 

 style glabrous. Fruit ovoid, elongated, apiculate, slightly five-angled, grey tomentose, 

 smooth or only indistinctly warty ; shell woody. 



This species shows in the wild state considerable variation in the shape of the 



1 Mr. Bean, in Kew Bull. 1908, p. 390, says that this species, which is so promising a tree for street planting, is 

 abundant in the Boskoop nurseries, near Gouda, in Holland. 



2 Garden and Forest, i. 332 (1888). 



3 In Aiton, Hort. Kew. ii. 230 (1789), it is erroneously stated that the common white lime is a native of North America, an 

 error which was' rectified in the second edition of this work, iii. 300 (181 1), where Hungary is correctly given. Some writers 

 have supposed that T. heterophylla was the species referred to ; but the type specimen in the British Museum, mscribed Tilia 

 alba in Solander's handwriting, though bearing neither flowers nor fruit, is without doubt a branch of the common European 

 lime, identical with var. argentea. 



