Tilia 1689 



TILIA MICHAUXII 



Tilia Michauxii, Nuttall, N. Amer. Sylva, i. 108 (1865); Sargent, Trees N. Amer. 673 (1905); 



Schneider, Laubholzkunde, ii. 387 (1909). 

 Tilia alba, Michaux, Hist. Arb. Amer. Sep. iii. 315, t. 2 (1813), and Nuttall, N. Amer. Sylva, iii. 



84, t. 132 (1865). (Not Alton, Hort. Kew.) 



A tree, attaining in America 80 ft. in height and 9 ft, in girth. Young 

 branchlets and buds glabrous. Leaves (Plate 407, Fig. 5) very variable in size, 

 averaging-^ 4 to 5 in. in length, and 3 to 4 in. in breadth, always much longer than 

 broad, ovate, very oblique and cordate or truncate at the base, cuspidate at the apex ; 

 margin with large triangular serrations ending in long incurved points ; upper surface 

 dark green, glabrescent ; lower surface covered with a scattered or dense greyish 

 tomentum, very variable in amount, and with conspicuous axil-tufts at the junctions 

 of the midrib, primary and secondary nerves ; petiole stout, short, glabrescent. 



Cymes, ten- to twenty-flowered ; bract tomentose above, glabrous below ; 

 peduncle glabrous ; pedicels slightly pubescent ; sepals lanceolate, pubescent on 

 both surfaces ; petals lanceolate, acute, twice as long as the sepals ; staminodes 

 present. Fruit globose, marked with five furrows and minutely tuberculate on the 

 grey slightly tomentose surface. 



This species was first described and figured by Michaux, who, however, 

 considered it to be the same as the European white lime. Nuttall ^ based his name 

 T. Michauxii on Michaux's description and figure. It appears to have much the 

 same distribution as T. heterophylla, but is imperfectly known,^ and in all probability 

 is a hybrid of that species with T. americana, resembling the latter in the serrations, 

 axil-tufts, and yellow midribs and nerves of the leaves. The characters of the 

 flowers are intermediate between the two species mentioned. The extreme 

 variability in the amount of the tomentum on the leaves points to a hybrid origin. 



It is not very common in cultivation in England ; but there are two fine trees 

 at Beauport, which are both grafted ; one of these measures 84 ft. by 9 ft. i in., and 

 the other is nearly as large. There are also small trees at Kew and Tortworth. 

 There is an ill-shaped tree at Castlemartyr in Ireland, which Elwes found in 1908 

 to be about 40 ft. by 3^^ ft. ; some of its leaves were no less than 1 2 in. long and 

 9 in. wide. It is cultivated under the name T. americana rubra in the Heatherside 

 nursery ; and appears to be known in continental nurseries under various names, as 

 T. americana pubescens, T. gigantea, T. macrophylla, T. hybrida superba, etc. 



(A. H.) 



' In cultivated trees in Europe the leaves are usually larger, averaging 7 in. long and 5 to 6 in. broad ; but this may be 

 a juvenile character. 



2 Nuttall says : " The Tilia alba of Michaux, not being the T. alba of Kitaibel and Aiton, it is necessary to change the 

 name, and we propose to call it T. Michauxii." 



3 I am unable to follow V. Engler's view, that all the trees in the wild state in America, supposed to be T. Michauxii by 

 Sargent and others, are simply T. heterophylla. Engler restricts the hybrid T. americana x T. heterophylla to trees found 

 in cultivation in Europe. Wild T. Michauxii in America, judging from a considerable number of specimens which I have 

 seen, is readily distinguishable from the true T. heterophylla ; and I see no reason for supposing that the trees referred by me 

 to T. Michauxii, which are in cultivation in Europe, are not originally from America. A small tree at Kew, received from 

 Biltmore, U.S.A., is undoubtedly T, Michauxii. 



