1 666 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



3. T. Beaumontia} which is sold in Spath's and Simon-Louis's nurseries, appears 

 to be a form of the common lime, with pendulous branches. 



The common lime is not indigenous in Britain, where it is never found except 

 in plantations, avenues, and hedgerows, and rarely^ produces natural seedlings. It 

 comes into flower^ about ten days later than T. platyphyllos, and a fortnight earlier 

 than T. cordata. 



In the common lime and allied species, the upper surface of the leaves is fre- 

 quently found in summer to be sprinkled over with a viscid saccharine fluid, which is 

 popularly known as honey dew. There has been great diversity of opinion as to 

 whether this honey dew is always an exudation from the leaves, or is in some cases 

 voided by aphides on the leaves. Sorauer," the latest investigator of this subject, 

 believes that the saccharine excretion originates without the assistance of aphides, 

 and is the result of excessive transpiration, brought about usually by intense sunlight, 

 a common occasion being when a cold night is followed by a hot morning sun. 

 After the honey dew dries and thickens, it becomes the seat of growth of certain 

 fungi, species of Fumago, which give the leaves a blackened appearance. Paths and 

 garden seats situated under lime trees frequently show a disagreeable coating of this 

 viscid exudation, which has fallen from the leaves. 



The date of its introduction into England is uncertain, but this tree appears ° 

 to have been first planted on a large scale by Le Notre,^ in the reign of Charles II., 

 who used it for avenues, as was then the custom in France. The lime trees 

 mentioned by Turner in 1562 as attaining a large size, and the old trees reported by 

 Barrington'' to be growing in 1769 in Moor Park in Hertfordshire and on the river 

 Neath in Glamorganshire, were probably T. cordata, and of indigenous origin. 



(A. H.) 



Cultivation 



The lime seems to ripen its seed more often than is generally supposed in warm 

 summers in the south of England, and I have raised seedlings ^ from seeds gathered 

 as far north as near Newark in 1904. In the same year Mr. A. C. Forbes sent me 

 some of the common lime from Longleat, saying that very little, if any, of the seed of 



' Cf. Schneider, Lauhhohkunde, ii. 374 (1909), who considers it to be a hybrid between T. euchlora and T. platyphyllos. 



2 Mr. Anderson has found a few seedlings from trees planted on the edge of Lord Bathurst's deer park, just opposite the 

 Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. — H. J. E. 



3 Cf. Dr. Moss, in Bot. Exchg. Club Rep. 19 10, p. 550. 



* Pflanzenkrank. i. 412-414 (1909). The literature about honey dew on the lime is extensive. Boussinganlt's article in 

 Comptes Rendus, Ixxiv. 87 (1872), and Riviere's and Roze's articles in Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xiv. 12, 15 (1867), are 

 abstracted in Gard. Chron. 1872, pp. 509, 609. See also various letters in Gard. Chron. 1873, pp. 920, 952, 1308, 1340, 

 1372, 1404, 1501, 1602. Buckton, British Aphides, i. 39-47 (1876), may also be consulted. 



6 Cf. Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i. 23, 24 (1838), who states, quoting Hasted, Kent, 562 (1769), that Sir John 

 Speilman, in the reign of Elizabeth, brought over two lime trees from Germany, which were planted at Portbridge, near 

 Dartford. These trees were cut down some time previous to 1769, and there is no means of determining what species of lime 

 they belonged to. 



" According to Chalmers, Biog. Diet, xxiii. 251 (1815), Andrew Le Notre, who was born in 1613 and died in 1700, 

 laid out St. James's and Greenwich Parks in the reign of Charles II. ' In Phil. Trans, lix. 35 (1769). 



8 In the west court of the University Library, Cambridge, which is laid out in grass, secluded, and surrounded by high 

 buildings, there were in 1912 several natural seedlings, arising from seed brought by winds or birds. These included Betula 

 pubescens and B. verrucosa, elder, Salix Caprea, Cratcegus monogyna, sycamore, and a solitary seedling, three or four years 

 old, which was apparently T. vulgaris. It differed slightly in having slight pubescence on the branchlets and imder surface of 

 the leaves, thus showing a reversion to T. platyphyllos. — A. H. 



